What it does
A moving band of text that scrolls along the top or bottom of the screen, staying visible over whatever else is playing. Choose the screens to show it on, then feed it your own messages row by row or a live RSS feed of headlines, and set the speed, direction, position and colours. It is a handy way to layer notices, opening hours and news over your regular content.
Every app in the catalogue is part of the plan. There is no app store, no per-app charge and nothing held back for a higher tier.
How to add a scrolling news ticker to a screen
A ticker is a band of text that scrolls along the top or bottom of the screen, over whatever is playing. Feed it your own messages or live headlines from an RSS feed.
- 01
Add the app
In the dashboard, open Apps and add Ticker.
- 02
Choose what scrolls
Under Source, pick My messages and add one row per message under Messages — they repeat in order, and you can drag them to reorder. Or pick RSS feed and paste the feed's address into RSS feed URL.
- 03
Set the look
Choose Speed (Slow, Normal or Fast), Direction (Right to left or Left to right) and Position (Top or Bottom). Theme fills in the Background color and Text color, which you can still change, and Font, Font weight and Font size (%) set the lettering.
- 04
Put it on a screen
Under Show on screens, choose the screens the band should appear on, then save. It does not go in a playlist and needs no duration: it stays over everything those screens play.
Good to know
Headlines refresh on their own
With an RSS feed, the band scrolls the feed's headlines and checks for new ones every five minutes. Only headlines are shown — no pictures or summaries.
Keeps scrolling offline
Your own messages keep scrolling while the network is down. With a feed, the band keeps the headlines it last received, and it does the same if the feed turns up empty.
A steady pace
Speed is the same whatever the length of your messages: a long message takes longer to pass rather than rushing by.
Questions about this app
No. It draws over whatever the screen shows, Zones layouts included, so you choose its screens in its own settings instead.
Any public RSS or Atom feed. The band uses up to 30 of its headlines, in the order the feed lists them.
Yes. Add the Ticker app once for each set of messages and choose different screens for each.
From the blog
- Digital menu board design: how to make a menu people can readDesign rules for a digital menu board: size for the queue, one category per page, photos and cut-outs, prices, light or dark, portrait or landscape.
- Digital Signage Design: 12 Rules for Screens Read Across a RoomTwelve rules for screens read from across a room: type size by distance, contrast, time per slide, motion, safe margins and portrait layouts.
- Digital bulletin board: how to replace the paper notice boardHow to swap a paper notice board for a screen: what to post, who can post, how old notices come down, and what one screen costs to run.
Something for every kind of screen.
Install what you need and ignore the rest. Nothing here is an add-on you pay extra for.