Screens, Templates, Fields, and Feeds

Screens

Screens in Concerto represent any place where the graphical, textual, or video content that is submitted is displayed. A screen will generally be a computer connected to a television, though using the Concerto API, it can take many forms, such as a widget on a website. Screens can be managed by clicking on the Screens navigation button. When a screen is selected, you will see a preview of how its content is laid out and what content it is subscribed to.

Templates

Each screen has a template assigned to it. This is the screen's visual identity and incorporates colors, background images, and other branding features for each display. If desired, this can give each screen a unique look and character all its own to better blend with its surroundings. Concerto comes with several templates already installed, but anyone can create and upload more.

Fields

Each template will have one or more fields. A field is a placeholder for the general type of content to be displayed on an area of the screen. A "graphics" field will be long and wide (probably in the proportion of a paper flyer). A "text" field might be short and narrow to accommodate a scrolling ticker, or long and wide to accommodate lists of events. If you already have a template chosen, this isn't something you have to worry about. When a template is created, it will have fields already set-up and placed on the screen. Most of the default templates include graphics, ticker, text, and time fields.

Feeds

Each field can be subscribed to a variety of feeds. Concerto feeds are exactly like other kinds of feeds on the Internet; they represent a group of related graphics, headlines, or video to be displayed on a screen. A feed may contain content for all the different sorts of fields on a screen, though only content that matches the type of the field it is in will be displayed. Different departments in a company or school may administer one or several feeds of content that they submit and that content can be subscribed to by Concerto screens and combined with many other feeds to create a diverse presentation of content.