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EMPLOYEE
Announcing Carousel 5.0
At long last, we're announcing the official release of Carousel 5.0 today. Well, actually, we're announcing three releases of Carousel today.
We quietly released Carousel 5.0.0 in March, and in the mean time, two smaller releases (5.0.1 and 5.0.2) have gone out as well. Why have we waited so long to let everyone know about it? Well, the short answer is, Carousel 5.0 represents the single biggest change to Carousel since the software was first released 10 years ago, and we needed to get all of our ducks in a row to make sure that the upgrade experience was a pleasant one. So, apologies for keeping it on the down low, but in the end, we think you'll like what we've done. :-)
So enough talk. What's new? First and foremost, Carousel 5.0 features multi-zone display. You can now "segment" your display into distinct zones, each displaying a unique set of content. Carousel 5.0 also contains web pictures, live video input, media tagging, and several other features and improvements. Coming along for the ride is FrontDoor 5.0, featuring a brand new role-based user management interface, allowing you to set up detailed access control for your system. A full list of changes and features can be found in the release notes below.
Everyone here at Tightrope has been working extremely hard on this release, and we can't wait to see the things you'll do with it. There are a few people out there who I'd like to thank for their help and hard work as well. To Zachary Schuster, Ed Nelson, and Keri Stokstad: our sincere thanks and appreciation.
Note:
The upgrade process for this version will work a little differently than it has in the past. In order to provide the best level of service that we can, we will be requiring all of our customers to register with us before getting an upgrade. Full details about registration can be found in another forum post, located [url="http://www.trms.com/main/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=579"]here[/url]. (It's in a new forum called "Tightrope Announcements." Be sure to subscribe to this forum too, as larger announcements that aren't specific to Carousel will be posted there.)
Release Notes - Carousel: 5.0.0
New - 533: Database installed/updated via SQL script
This will make updating database versions easier in future releases.
New - 584: Media can be organized by Tags
Allows for flexible categorization and searching of media assets.
New - 585: Transition Previews
A small preview of each trasnsition is available in the WebUI.
New - 701: WebUI now supports live video bulletins
Live video bulletins can be created in Carousel. DisplayEngines must have a supported TV-input card installed.
New - 703: Zones are specified as a Crawl, Bulletin, or FullAlert Zone
Zones come in three flavors. Bulletin zones display bulletins in sections of a channel. Crawl zones contain all the crawls to be shown on a channel. FullAlert zones display bulletins on the entire channel, on top of any bulletin zones.
New - 704: A Channel contains a set of Zones
A channel can display any number of zones within itself. Zones are composited inside a channel.
New - 714: FullAlert Zones
FullAlert zones display alert bulletins over the entire channel, no matter how many zones are "underneath" the FullAlert zone.
New - 782: Zones can be organized by Tags
Zones can be tagged with ZoneTags, allowing flexible categorization and searching of zones. Handy for installations with dozens of zones.
New - 783: New CSS-based User Interface
-
New - 831: Zones can have a description
You can assign a description to a zone. Handy for sites with dozens of zones.
New - 839: Zones can be selected via a dropdown menu list or a Tag-based selection interface
Depending on how many zones are in a system, they can be selected two different ways. The list style is best for a handful of zones, and the tag style is best for a large number of zones.
New - 1070: New User Roles
Carousel supports the Role-based authorization and authentication in FrontDoor 5.0
New - 1120: New Bulletin Management Interface
Revamped the "look" of bulletin management to be a bit easier on the eyes.
New - 1121: New Bulletin Previews
Full screen previews of bulletins (in the bulletin management areas) use a new windowing technique.
New - 1165: DisplayEngine sports a simple 'cuts-only' graphics mode for Legacy and Solo hardware
Standard transitions might be too much for old or underpowered hardware to handle. The DE can now run in a simple, lightweight mode that doesn't stress the hardware.
New - 1168: WebUI thumbnail images are higher quality
We don't compress them as much anymore, so they look a bit nicer.
New - 1280: New Fonts
-
New - 1362: New Icons for bulletin types
-
New - 49: DisplayEngine now supports live video input
With the proper TV-input card, the DisplayEngine will show live video in a zone. Can be composite, tuner, or streaming over the network.
New - 1523: Bulletin notification email includes the username of the bulletin's creator
Anyone who is notified of new bulletins is also informed of who created the bulletin.
New - 1327: DisplayEngine shows a "Loading Zone" message for each zone
It's now easier to see the zones as they are being drawn on the DisplayEngine.
New - 1535: Installers skip DE for Win2003Server OS machines
The DisplayEngine is no longer supported on Windows 2003 Server operating systems. The Carousel installer no longer installs the DE on these systems.
New - 1599: Welcome screen for new installations
Brand new installations see a friendly welcome screen.
New - 53: Web pictures
Bulletins can include picture blocks that update their content based on a URL to an image file on the internet.
New - 58: DisplayEngine supports Zoned channels
The DE will show multiple zones on a single channel
New - 110: Carousel remembers the last Zone you were on
When logging back into the system, you will be placed on the same zone you were on when you logged off.
Bug - 1527: Applying effects to PNG pictures will remove the alpha channel
A warning is now displayed to the user.
Bug - 1363: RSS bulletins lock up the Service if the feed isn't valid XML
The service now validates XML before attempting to parse it. If the XML is invalid, the feed is not processed.
Bug - 1499: Media Asset duplication screen is confusing
Copying media is now a bit more clear.
Bug - 1293: Commas in EventDisplay schedule fields split the text into multiple events
Commas are now properly escaped before the form data is processed.
Bug - 1324: DisplayEngine doesn't efficiently download files
DE was creating too many threads, and not closing them when finished. Now it handles downloads much more efficiently.
Release Notes - Carousel: 5.0.1
Bug - 781: Bulletin thumbnails for long or tall zones can break the UI
Thumbnails are now scaled by both height and width so extra wide zones don't wreck the web interface.
Bug - 1424: Can't download Mac Screensaver off Carousel Pro Servers
The screensaver download for the Mac has been changed so Carousel Pro servers now allow you to download it.
Bug - 1441: No Select all/none icon for PowerPoint slide selection
Added select all/none to the Powerpoint slide thumbnail selection screen.
Bug - 1492: Browse button is clipped off
Several upload pages were fixed so that the "Browse..." button would no longer be cut off.
Bug - 1502: Zone TagSelector UI is badly rendered
The slide out selector for using the tag-style selection of zones has been changed to use the modal dialog instead. It is now intuitive, quicker and looks nicer.
Bug - 1505: Modal configuration screens should resize to fit the browser window
The size of the configuration and preview modal dialog screens have been increased in size. This allows you to do more work with less scrolling. If you are on a small monitor, they will still squish to fit inside the browser window.
Bug - 1506: DateTime overlay has strange "Show On" setting
The "Show On" option for the overlay text has been removed, since the "bumper graphic" doesn't make sense when there are multiple zones. The overlay is either completely enabled or disabled.
Bug - 1571: Misspelled description of 'Delete all stale bulletins'
Fixed spelling errors in the text on the housekeeping screen.
Bug - 1602: Channels Configuration menu should be Channel Configuration
Fixed error in text, "Channels Configuration" has been changed to read "Channel Configuration".
Bug - 1610: Background audio doesn't work with new hardware
Added support for the audio device on our latest revision of the hardware.
Bug - 1622: Extraneous colon when copying or moving a bulletin
Removed an extra ":" that was on the move/copy bulletin screen.
Bug - 1624: Long zone names don't behave well in the Channel Layout screen
Long zone names are truncated in the channel layout screen and provide tooltips to see the full name. Incredibly long names would wreck the interface by overlapping other elements before.
Bug - 1682: DisplayEngine startup hanging on Solo 200
A delay has been added before running the DisplayEngine after system startup on solo machines.
Bug - 1713: Service hangs when a Zone is removed from a Channel
When deleting a zone, Carousel now checks to see if it is still referenced by a channel, if so you are informed you must remove the reference from that channel before deleting the zone.
Bug - 1725: Deleting a zone from a channel layout causes some javascript errors
Fixed a quoting error in javascript which would cause errors if zones had apostrophes in their name.
Release Notes - Carousel: 5.0.2
New - 1720: Support for the WinTV USB device for tv input
-
Bug - 1896: Alert bulletins do not display after being approved
The alert cache was never getting refreshed in the service when turning on this alert bulletin because the WebUI was not checking if it was an alert bulletin correctly.
Bug - 1865: A single standard zone is displayed on top of FullScreen Alert zones
If the DisplayEngine was started in Full Screen Alert mode, a stray zone was occasionally displayed on top of the full alert zone. All graphics managers now detect Full Screen Alert mode correctly.
Bug - 1983: CableDisplay bulletins lost the "Channel Name" field
The "ChannelName" placeholder on the CableDisplay creation screen was mis-labeled as "ZoneName"
Bug - 1856: Group names revert to the original name after a bulletin in the group is edited
A group name is generated for new groups only. Existing group names are left untouched.
Bug - 1858: Error when accessing background audio list through System Information page
Accessing the background audio list through the "system information" configuration screen wasn't setting things up properly, causing an error. Now, the only way to view the background audio list is to enter via the channel configuration pages.
Bug - 1935: Single zone systems ask to copy bulletins to other zones
This happened when there is one standard zone, and one or more crawl zones. The zone copy screen was skipped if the number of TOTAL zones is <= 1. If you had one standard zone and one crawl zone, the total number is 2, and the screen was shown. Now, we only count zones of the same type as the one you're working on.
Bug - 1838: When copying bulletins to multiple zones, the affected zones are not accurately represented
A message is now displayed stating the number of zones to which the bulletin (or group) was copied.
Bug - 1908: Can't upload a Powerpoint file as an alert bulletin on a zone
When converting Powerpoint files into standard bulletins, the bulletins weren't inheriting the correct standard/alert type.
Bug - 1914: An invalid color caused ArgumentOutOfRange exceptions in the channel layout screen
We were specifically excluding a particular color from the channel layout screen, but our random color picker would still occasionally choose it.
Bug - 1876: Zone Tag Selector Glitch in Safari
Safari doesn't handle certain types of links correctly. We now use links that work in all browsers.
Bug - 1877: Media count can be incorrect when uploading media packages
Media packages created on Mac OS X systems can contain hidden files used by the Mac operating system, which were being counted by the uploader. Those files are now explicitly ignored, so the count should accurately reflect the uploaded content.
Bug - 1878: Uploading high resolution picture files causes performance problems
All uploaded picture files are now scaled appropriately before they are saved into the system.
Bug - 1880: Long picture/background/video names aren't displayed nicely when creating bulletins
The long names pushed other interface elements out of the way. Names are now truncated, and a tooltip will display the full name.
Bug - 1952: Support line-in background audio on new build codes
The DisplayEngine can now turn line-in background audio on and off on the latest hardware build codes.
Bug - 1920: Add new address to manual
We're now in Suite 1B! Movin' on up!
--
John Reilly
Developer
Tightrope Media Systems
We quietly released Carousel 5.0.0 in March, and in the mean time, two smaller releases (5.0.1 and 5.0.2) have gone out as well. Why have we waited so long to let everyone know about it? Well, the short answer is, Carousel 5.0 represents the single biggest change to Carousel since the software was first released 10 years ago, and we needed to get all of our ducks in a row to make sure that the upgrade experience was a pleasant one. So, apologies for keeping it on the down low, but in the end, we think you'll like what we've done. :-)
So enough talk. What's new? First and foremost, Carousel 5.0 features multi-zone display. You can now "segment" your display into distinct zones, each displaying a unique set of content. Carousel 5.0 also contains web pictures, live video input, media tagging, and several other features and improvements. Coming along for the ride is FrontDoor 5.0, featuring a brand new role-based user management interface, allowing you to set up detailed access control for your system. A full list of changes and features can be found in the release notes below.
Everyone here at Tightrope has been working extremely hard on this release, and we can't wait to see the things you'll do with it. There are a few people out there who I'd like to thank for their help and hard work as well. To Zachary Schuster, Ed Nelson, and Keri Stokstad: our sincere thanks and appreciation.
Note:
The upgrade process for this version will work a little differently than it has in the past. In order to provide the best level of service that we can, we will be requiring all of our customers to register with us before getting an upgrade. Full details about registration can be found in another forum post, located [url="http://www.trms.com/main/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=579"]here[/url]. (It's in a new forum called "Tightrope Announcements." Be sure to subscribe to this forum too, as larger announcements that aren't specific to Carousel will be posted there.)
Release Notes - Carousel: 5.0.0
New - 533: Database installed/updated via SQL script
This will make updating database versions easier in future releases.
New - 584: Media can be organized by Tags
Allows for flexible categorization and searching of media assets.
New - 585: Transition Previews
A small preview of each trasnsition is available in the WebUI.
New - 701: WebUI now supports live video bulletins
Live video bulletins can be created in Carousel. DisplayEngines must have a supported TV-input card installed.
New - 703: Zones are specified as a Crawl, Bulletin, or FullAlert Zone
Zones come in three flavors. Bulletin zones display bulletins in sections of a channel. Crawl zones contain all the crawls to be shown on a channel. FullAlert zones display bulletins on the entire channel, on top of any bulletin zones.
New - 704: A Channel contains a set of Zones
A channel can display any number of zones within itself. Zones are composited inside a channel.
New - 714: FullAlert Zones
FullAlert zones display alert bulletins over the entire channel, no matter how many zones are "underneath" the FullAlert zone.
New - 782: Zones can be organized by Tags
Zones can be tagged with ZoneTags, allowing flexible categorization and searching of zones. Handy for installations with dozens of zones.
New - 783: New CSS-based User Interface
-
New - 831: Zones can have a description
You can assign a description to a zone. Handy for sites with dozens of zones.
New - 839: Zones can be selected via a dropdown menu list or a Tag-based selection interface
Depending on how many zones are in a system, they can be selected two different ways. The list style is best for a handful of zones, and the tag style is best for a large number of zones.
New - 1070: New User Roles
Carousel supports the Role-based authorization and authentication in FrontDoor 5.0
New - 1120: New Bulletin Management Interface
Revamped the "look" of bulletin management to be a bit easier on the eyes.
New - 1121: New Bulletin Previews
Full screen previews of bulletins (in the bulletin management areas) use a new windowing technique.
New - 1165: DisplayEngine sports a simple 'cuts-only' graphics mode for Legacy and Solo hardware
Standard transitions might be too much for old or underpowered hardware to handle. The DE can now run in a simple, lightweight mode that doesn't stress the hardware.
New - 1168: WebUI thumbnail images are higher quality
We don't compress them as much anymore, so they look a bit nicer.
New - 1280: New Fonts
-
New - 1362: New Icons for bulletin types
-
New - 49: DisplayEngine now supports live video input
With the proper TV-input card, the DisplayEngine will show live video in a zone. Can be composite, tuner, or streaming over the network.
New - 1523: Bulletin notification email includes the username of the bulletin's creator
Anyone who is notified of new bulletins is also informed of who created the bulletin.
New - 1327: DisplayEngine shows a "Loading Zone" message for each zone
It's now easier to see the zones as they are being drawn on the DisplayEngine.
New - 1535: Installers skip DE for Win2003Server OS machines
The DisplayEngine is no longer supported on Windows 2003 Server operating systems. The Carousel installer no longer installs the DE on these systems.
New - 1599: Welcome screen for new installations
Brand new installations see a friendly welcome screen.
New - 53: Web pictures
Bulletins can include picture blocks that update their content based on a URL to an image file on the internet.
New - 58: DisplayEngine supports Zoned channels
The DE will show multiple zones on a single channel
New - 110: Carousel remembers the last Zone you were on
When logging back into the system, you will be placed on the same zone you were on when you logged off.
Bug - 1527: Applying effects to PNG pictures will remove the alpha channel
A warning is now displayed to the user.
Bug - 1363: RSS bulletins lock up the Service if the feed isn't valid XML
The service now validates XML before attempting to parse it. If the XML is invalid, the feed is not processed.
Bug - 1499: Media Asset duplication screen is confusing
Copying media is now a bit more clear.
Bug - 1293: Commas in EventDisplay schedule fields split the text into multiple events
Commas are now properly escaped before the form data is processed.
Bug - 1324: DisplayEngine doesn't efficiently download files
DE was creating too many threads, and not closing them when finished. Now it handles downloads much more efficiently.
Release Notes - Carousel: 5.0.1
Bug - 781: Bulletin thumbnails for long or tall zones can break the UI
Thumbnails are now scaled by both height and width so extra wide zones don't wreck the web interface.
Bug - 1424: Can't download Mac Screensaver off Carousel Pro Servers
The screensaver download for the Mac has been changed so Carousel Pro servers now allow you to download it.
Bug - 1441: No Select all/none icon for PowerPoint slide selection
Added select all/none to the Powerpoint slide thumbnail selection screen.
Bug - 1492: Browse button is clipped off
Several upload pages were fixed so that the "Browse..." button would no longer be cut off.
Bug - 1502: Zone TagSelector UI is badly rendered
The slide out selector for using the tag-style selection of zones has been changed to use the modal dialog instead. It is now intuitive, quicker and looks nicer.
Bug - 1505: Modal configuration screens should resize to fit the browser window
The size of the configuration and preview modal dialog screens have been increased in size. This allows you to do more work with less scrolling. If you are on a small monitor, they will still squish to fit inside the browser window.
Bug - 1506: DateTime overlay has strange "Show On" setting
The "Show On" option for the overlay text has been removed, since the "bumper graphic" doesn't make sense when there are multiple zones. The overlay is either completely enabled or disabled.
Bug - 1571: Misspelled description of 'Delete all stale bulletins'
Fixed spelling errors in the text on the housekeeping screen.
Bug - 1602: Channels Configuration menu should be Channel Configuration
Fixed error in text, "Channels Configuration" has been changed to read "Channel Configuration".
Bug - 1610: Background audio doesn't work with new hardware
Added support for the audio device on our latest revision of the hardware.
Bug - 1622: Extraneous colon when copying or moving a bulletin
Removed an extra ":" that was on the move/copy bulletin screen.
Bug - 1624: Long zone names don't behave well in the Channel Layout screen
Long zone names are truncated in the channel layout screen and provide tooltips to see the full name. Incredibly long names would wreck the interface by overlapping other elements before.
Bug - 1682: DisplayEngine startup hanging on Solo 200
A delay has been added before running the DisplayEngine after system startup on solo machines.
Bug - 1713: Service hangs when a Zone is removed from a Channel
When deleting a zone, Carousel now checks to see if it is still referenced by a channel, if so you are informed you must remove the reference from that channel before deleting the zone.
Bug - 1725: Deleting a zone from a channel layout causes some javascript errors
Fixed a quoting error in javascript which would cause errors if zones had apostrophes in their name.
Release Notes - Carousel: 5.0.2
New - 1720: Support for the WinTV USB device for tv input
-
Bug - 1896: Alert bulletins do not display after being approved
The alert cache was never getting refreshed in the service when turning on this alert bulletin because the WebUI was not checking if it was an alert bulletin correctly.
Bug - 1865: A single standard zone is displayed on top of FullScreen Alert zones
If the DisplayEngine was started in Full Screen Alert mode, a stray zone was occasionally displayed on top of the full alert zone. All graphics managers now detect Full Screen Alert mode correctly.
Bug - 1983: CableDisplay bulletins lost the "Channel Name" field
The "ChannelName" placeholder on the CableDisplay creation screen was mis-labeled as "ZoneName"
Bug - 1856: Group names revert to the original name after a bulletin in the group is edited
A group name is generated for new groups only. Existing group names are left untouched.
Bug - 1858: Error when accessing background audio list through System Information page
Accessing the background audio list through the "system information" configuration screen wasn't setting things up properly, causing an error. Now, the only way to view the background audio list is to enter via the channel configuration pages.
Bug - 1935: Single zone systems ask to copy bulletins to other zones
This happened when there is one standard zone, and one or more crawl zones. The zone copy screen was skipped if the number of TOTAL zones is <= 1. If you had one standard zone and one crawl zone, the total number is 2, and the screen was shown. Now, we only count zones of the same type as the one you're working on.
Bug - 1838: When copying bulletins to multiple zones, the affected zones are not accurately represented
A message is now displayed stating the number of zones to which the bulletin (or group) was copied.
Bug - 1908: Can't upload a Powerpoint file as an alert bulletin on a zone
When converting Powerpoint files into standard bulletins, the bulletins weren't inheriting the correct standard/alert type.
Bug - 1914: An invalid color caused ArgumentOutOfRange exceptions in the channel layout screen
We were specifically excluding a particular color from the channel layout screen, but our random color picker would still occasionally choose it.
Bug - 1876: Zone Tag Selector Glitch in Safari
Safari doesn't handle certain types of links correctly. We now use links that work in all browsers.
Bug - 1877: Media count can be incorrect when uploading media packages
Media packages created on Mac OS X systems can contain hidden files used by the Mac operating system, which were being counted by the uploader. Those files are now explicitly ignored, so the count should accurately reflect the uploaded content.
Bug - 1878: Uploading high resolution picture files causes performance problems
All uploaded picture files are now scaled appropriately before they are saved into the system.
Bug - 1880: Long picture/background/video names aren't displayed nicely when creating bulletins
The long names pushed other interface elements out of the way. Names are now truncated, and a tooltip will display the full name.
Bug - 1952: Support line-in background audio on new build codes
The DisplayEngine can now turn line-in background audio on and off on the latest hardware build codes.
Bug - 1920: Add new address to manual
We're now in Suite 1B! Movin' on up!
--
John Reilly
Developer
Tightrope Media Systems
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