Interactivity

Introduction

In the digital signage context, interactivity refers to the player quality of reacting in a user-defined manner, following the input received from external devices. The interactivity trigger could be a human input (via a touchscreen, a keyboard, a web page, etc.) or machine input (e.g., another player, a Control System, etc.).

Based on how the player communicates with the external device, three types of interactivity can be differentiated:

Based on the message received, the player can perform reactive actions like:

switch from the displaying the regular content to displaying a particular content;
display the message received (i.e., instant text messaging) or contextual animations, images and/or videos on the screen;
display or hide part(s) of the current content;
control the playback (e.g., play, pause, resume, stop) of video, audio, or animated content;
send a message to other devices (including other players, serial devices etc.);
do an AJAX request to an HTTP server;
... and many more.

Process overview

The process to create interactivity is always the same, regardless of how the external device is connected to the player:

Input
The player receives an input message from the external device via USB, IP network, or serial port.
Input conversion
The player translates internally this message into an event (like keydown, mousedown, mousemove, etc.) or a Shared Variable update action.
Reactive output
The player executes a reactive action according to the interactive logic (JavaScript / jSignage code, interactive widgets, etc.) defined for that particular event or update action.

How to configure the player for interactivity

Further details about how to configure a player for the different types of interactivity are presented on these pages:

How to create interactive content

There are different methods to create interactive content (projects):

Using the interactive widgets of Elementi.
Create interactive content with jSignage
Using SVG's support for JavaScript scripting language, UI events, and uDOM manipulation.

Further details about how to create interactive content are presented on these pages:

Interactive projects

You can also build your interactive project starting from one of the following sample projects: