Logg Inn
Logg Inn

Serial Port Triggers

1 – Install the screenpublishing “Serial Trigger Adapter”  module

The Serial Trigger is an additional screenpublishing Module that will read the events sent over the serial port and trigger the associated content at the screenpublishing player.

  1. Download the Serial Trigger Adapter
  2. Install the Serial Trigger Adapter on the player
  3. Start the Serial Trigger Adapter application
  4. Right-click on the systray icon to configure the Serial port number

IMPORTANT:  Make sure you CLOSE any other serial terminal application (e.g.PuTTY) before starting the screenpublishing Serial Trigger Adapter otherwise there will be a port conflict.

 

2 – Test your setting using the Serial Trigger Adapter log

To make sure all is running fine, right-click the “Serial Trigger Adapar” icon on the windows SysTray and click on “View log”.

With the log opened, perform an action that will make your device send data over the serial port.

Below is a sample log. Please note your device can send a serial command that is completely different from the image below:

 

3 – Configure the Serial Trigger Adapter to trigger campaigns

The triggers are configured by editing a config file. Right-click the Serial Trigger Adapter icon on the windows systray bar and select “Open Settings”.

Edit the trigger and content settings and save the file. The changes will be immediately applied.

 

The config file follows this format:

 

[trigger NAME]
input=EVENT
action=/trigger/PATTERN
debounce=5

Where:

– trigger NAME can be any identifier

– EVENT is the event sent by the External Serial Device

– PATTERN is the “Local Web API” pattern configured to trigger the interactive content at the specific screenpublishing player ( more details will be provided below).


# Example of trigger configuration
[trigger 8]
input=Motion
action=/trigger/MotionDetected
debounce=5
</code/>

5- Configure screenpublishing

Make sure you are running screenpublishing Windows Player version 8.0.0 or newer.

On the player settings page, enable “Local Web API“

You will need to configure the campaign(s) that will be triggered as interactivity campaigns on the player.

  1. Go to the player page -> select “interactivity“
  2. Click +Add Interaction
  3. Local API rule matching the pattern previously configured on the Serial Adapter Settings

Wait until the player synchronization is finished and you now you should be able to trigger campaigns using the external device to trigger content over the serial port.

 

4 – Additional Debugging Tools (Optional)

You can also use a standard Serial Port Terminal such as putty https://www.putty.org/ to make sure the external serial device commands are being correctly sent to your Player.

  1. Make sure no other software is using the serial port and make sure the screenpublishing Serial Trigger Adapter is running!
  2. Download and install PuTTY
  3. Configure it to the appropriate serial port using 115200 8N1 as settings:

Once the serial port is configured and connected, approach and remove tags from the antenna and the serial port should start reading the sensor information similar to the image below: