Text ticker widgets

 

This page is related to Data-driven widgets and was updated for Elementi 2025; the information below might not apply to older versions.

Description

Text Ticker widget sample icon

Text Ticker widgets display one line of text content using a continuous horizontal scrolling effect. These widgets are notably useful when the length of the text or the number of items is unknown in advance, for instance, when the text items are coming from a data source. The font size is automatically adjusted for the text to fit neatly into the widget's designated area.

Text Ticker widgets can be found in several folders accessible from “Widgets” tab within the Browse panel.

• “Text Crawlers”, “RSS”, “Text”, “Spreadsheets”, “Calendars”, and “Data Feeds” starting with Elementi 2015
• “Twitter” starting with Elementi 2016
• “Facebook” starting with Elementi 2017
• “Yammer” starting with Elementi 2018
• “SharePoint News” and “Viva Engage” starting with Elementi 2025

Configuration

When the Text Ticker widget is opened in Elementi, the following configuration options are shown under the "Properties" tab in the Edit panel:

Text Ticker widget properties

• Data

  Click the button to open the Data Properties dialog and set up the data source.

• Locale

  Select the locale to be used when displaying dates and numbers.

• Text template

  Click the button to configure the template used for displaying the items retrieved from the data source. The template should contain one or more data placeholders (e.g., [[title]]), where each can have its text style (color, font, bold, italic, etc.).

  Any style change must be applied to the entire data placeholder (the whole string, including the square brackets). The font size cannot be explicitly set because it is automatically computed by the widget. For more details, see the customization example below.

• Looping

  Select whether the widget ends after the last text item or loops to the first one.

• Direction

  Select the direction of the scroll between "Right to left" and "Left to right".

• Speed

  Enter the scrolling speed as a percentage factor, between 0 and 1000, relative to the text height. The default value of 100 means that the ticker advances the text by 100% * textHeight pixels per second, while 50 would mean half of it. Note that the actual speed is rounded up to the closest value guaranteed to produce a smooth scroll.

• Spacing

  Enter the spacing between two items as a percentage factor relative to the text height.

Customization

Example of text template customization

Here are some customization examples related to the Text Ticker widget:

• Display the content of a spreadsheet file
• Display an RSS text ticker

For advanced users, see this tutorial about how to disable the automatic calculation of the font size and jSignage.textTicker() function.

Troubleshooting

• The following message is displayed: The text ticker is set to loop and using it within a schedule or a multiscreen project might cause problems.

  The alert message is usually displayed when the widget is included into a multiscreen project or a schedule file and it is set to loop - in which case, it may cause synchronization problems. The solution is to disable the widget's looping property.

  This message can also be received within regular projects, when dragging the project timeline or when any manipulation is done on the feed widget after 12 hours of playing time - in this case the alert message can safely be ignored.

See also

• Text bar widgets for vertical scrolling only when the text doesn't fit.
• Text roll widgets for continuous vertical scrolling.
• Slideshow widgets for displaying slides composed of text & media layers, one after another, as a playlist.
• Table widgets for displaying multiple items on the same slide.
• RSS ticker tutorial.
• Feed widgets in Elementi 3.x