This page was updated for Elementi 2025; the information below might not apply for older versions.
Introduction
An Elementi project is a collection of multimedia resources that are connected and presented together to create a digital signage presentation. Images, videos, texts, web pages, and other visual elements, can be organized within layouts, playlists, and widgets, can be linked to the real-time thorough schedules, and can be stored within the project and/or remotely referenced via HTTP(s). All must be referenced from the main index file of the project, either explicitly or implicitly through the inner imbrication of layers.
Projects are used as containers for authoring and previewing the content, before publishing it on SpinetiX players. Elementi lets you create high impact projects, including video walls, interactive kiosks and live-streaming video, and deliver a visually rich experience to virtually any combination of screens across all your networks.
Even though it's possible to modify the content of player directly from Elementi M/X, working with a local project have several advantages, the most important being:
Sandbox / Off-line mode: Create projects off-line, preview them and keep modifying them without affecting the actual presentation being displayed live. When the content is finalized, it can easily be published on the target player(s).
Multi-target publishing: It's way faster to modify a project locally and then publish it onto multiple devices, than doing the same modifications on each individual player. This is especially useful in case of multiscreen projects.
The list of available projects is displayed within the Browse panel under the "Projects" tab. There are two listing views to choose from:
Icon View (the default view)
This view shows projects and and collections with large icons with names underneath them. After creation, each project has an icon similar with the one on the right, with the project type marked on it. After saving the project, a snapshot of the content is added within the standard icon.
List View
This view shows two columns: one with the name of the project or collection, with a small icon in front of the name, and the second with the type of the project/collection. Different sorting orders can be set by clicking on the list headers.
Common actions
To open an existing project, double-click on its icon.
To publish a project, select it and click on the "Publish" button.
To archive a project, right-click on it and select "Archive...".
To import an archived project into Elementi, simply drag & drop the 7z file into the Browse panel under the "Projects" view.
To change the type of a project, right-click on it, go over "Set Type" option and select the desired project type.
Projects location
When installing Elementi, a folder named "Projects" is automatically created under "My Documents\SpinetiX" and by default, Elementi will look inside this location for projects. This folder can be easily opened by right-clicking on an empty area within the Browse panel and selecting "Open folder in explorer" option. Alternatively, run the following command: shell:Personal\SpinetiX\Projects.
The location where Elementi looks for your projects can be changed using "Menu ▶ Settings ▶ Projects/Assets location..." option. Note that the projects are not automatically copied when doing so.
How to create a project
To create a new project in Elementi, follow these steps:
Color Gamut: Defaults to SDR. If the model is "iBX440 / 8K Partner Player", you can select HDR if you have such content.
Cloud Account: If needed, pick out the SpinetiX cloud account associated with this project, for instance, if you are planning to use the “Connectors” service for secure data access in data-driven widgets. You might first need to log in with your SpinetiX cloud user.
Format: Select the content format according to the target screen(s). Some of the options below are enabled only for certain player models and/or Feature Sets.
Multiscreen: Defaults to "Single screen" for most formats. If a multiscreen format is selected, then you get "One screen per player" by default. For multi-output players like iBX440, you can also set "One player with multiple outputs" or "Many players with multiple outputs". For more details, see how to create a multiscreen project.
Width, Height: Enter the width and height, in pixels. Enabled only when selecting the “Custom” format.
Duration: Choose between "Indefinite" (the project is not time-limited), "Automatic" (the project's duration is determined automatically during playback, based on the inner content), some common durations (“0:00:30” to “0:05:00”), or enter the project's duration as hh:mm:ss.
Click the 🆗 button to create the project. New project folder gets created
Double-click on the project icon in Browse panel to open it.
The newly created project contains a single file, index.svg, which is automatically opened for editing and preview.
Notes:
The project name can be changed at any point from the Browse panel.
The model can be changed later by right-clicking on the project icon, selecting the "Project Properties..." option, and selecting the desired project type. This is however not recommended if you've already imported media files, as Elementi won't recheck for compatibility.
The selected format is used by default for any new Elementi layout created within the project.
The project duration can be changed from index.svg document properties.
For more details about how to add more elements to your project, see “My first Elementi project” tutorial.
Main index file
The index.svg file created automatically in the root of any new project serves as the entry point or the fondation of the project. It's the file that the player or application uses to start, organize, and render other related files. The name is case-sensitive and must be kept in lowercase. Without this file, the project cannot be published, nor rendered by the player.
When opening a project in Elementi, the index.svg file gets opened automatically. It is a a multi-layer SVG document, like a master layout, that inherits automatically the project's properties. These properties can be modified at any time from the "Document Properties" dialog by clicking on the icon from the toolbar. The following properties can be configured:
Document Properties
Format
Select the format of the document view box (which should match the format of the target screen).
Choose between some standard formats (16:9, 4:3, 16:10 etc.) or custom (in this case, enter the width and height).
Duration (see above)
Background
Enable this to add a background color to the document.
Resolution and aspect ratio
When creating a new project in Elementi, you need to select the project format; you can choose either a predefined aspect ratio format (e.g., 16:9, 16:10, 4:3, 9:16, etc.) or a custom format (and manually specify width and height values). This is applied as default format on the index.svg file and, subsequently, on all the new SVG files created inside the project. Of course, this can be changed at any time for any of the files within the project.
This format defines the vectorial dimensions (remember that SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics) for the rectangular region (i.e., viewport) onto which graphics elements are to be rendered. Note that this "resolution" of the document is not the actual video output resolution (which is set from Display settings) of the player (the content will simply be scaled to the size of the output frame) and is only used for positioning elements inside the svg container.
You can use whatever "resolution" you want, yet as long as the aspect ratio is kept, the result will be the same on the screen - for example 128x72, 1280x720, 1600x900 or 12800x7200 will look exactly the same on 16:9 screen.
Copy a project from a player
To copy and modify the project present saved on a player, follow these steps:
Within a multi-site deployment, the content management might raise some challenges - for instance, a content manager from a company headquarters would create and schedule the global communication, yet most often, the local branches would need to have their own local content included as well. This kind of situation is usually addressed through content delegation, however, in some cases, the HQ content manager might want to restrict the access to some parts of the project so that other users cannot overwrite it.
Depending on the level of restrictions to impose, there are three solutions:
Low level
User roles feature of Elementi M / X can be used to limit other users from editing / publishing the content. A user having editing role set to "Edit mode" is only able to change the content (e.g., images, videos, texts etc.) specifically marked as editable (within Elementi X), while a user with "Read only" cannot modify anything.
The downside of this is that the user can open the project location in Windows Explorer and delete or change the project files.
Medium level
The project is divided into two collections (folders), for instance "public" and "private", and you want other users to be able to modify only the public" part.
To achieve this, follow these steps:
Set a content password on the player(s) to avoid overwriting the entire content on the player.
Archive of the "public" collection and import it on the user machine.
Create a "Publish Location" for address http://HMP_address:81/public/. Enter the username "content" and the password you set at first step.
The user will then publish his changes onto this location.
The downside of this is that the user can find that password under the Network Credentials and use it to overwrite the entire content.
High level
This is similar to the previous scenario, but scales better when having multiple players and also allows you to control when the content is published on the players. This requires a web server with WebDAV enabled. The players will retrieve the content using Scheduled Download / Pull mode.
To achieve this, follow these steps:
Create a skeleton project containing two folders, for instance "public" and "private", and publish it on your web server (e.g., http://Server_address/path_to_project/) using Publish Location feature. This will create the initial structure of your main project.
Create a second project that will be used to publish changes onto the "private" part of the main project. Use a second "Publish Location" pointing to the "private" folder (http://Server_address/path_to_project/private/).
On the user side, create a project that will be used to publish changes onto the "public" part of the main project. Use a "Publish Location" pointing to the "public" folder (http://Server_address/path_to_project/public/).
Troubleshooting
Project does not open in the last tab and / or nothing happens when you try to publish it.
That's because it is not recognized as a project by Elementi. Right click on its icon and set its type to "HMP*** Project".
Warning: using link 'project://...' will only work on this computer.
This warning message appears because a file was drag & dropped from another project directly into the current opened document, without copying the file into the current project. Since the URI to that file is relative, the file can be displayed only on that computer. If the project is published, the HMP won't be able to retrieve the file. The solution is to first copy the file into the current project folder and then drag & drop it into the current opened document.
Notes:
icon from the toolbar. The following properties can be configured: 