Matrix Message Board Control Program

Screen Pictures Not To Scale

Introduction

The message board control program is used to create a different variety of text messages and graphics for the message board.  Once the desired messages are entered, all the data can be transmitted to the display to start the show.

User Interface Description

The message board control program has two main windows:

 1.  The simulated LED screen window

 This window is used to display the LED screen exactly the same way it will be displayed on the actual LED screen.

 2.  The text messages composer window

 This window consists of the following controls listed in order from top to bottom, and from left to right.

1. Style

-        message style

-        style properties

 2.     Font

-        font name

-        font size

3.     Alignment

-        vertical alignment

-        horizontal alignment

4.     Pause

5.   Brightness Control

6.   Text Editor

7.   Schedule

•    time

•    date

8.   Control Panel

1.     Style

Some of the styles, for example left scroll, have a selection in the properties drop down box.  If a style doesn't have a property, then a 'No Properties' message will be displayed in the drop down box.

2.     Font

There are different kinds of fonts that may be selected using the font selection drop down box.  Some of the fonts have multiple choices of size selection.  If the selected font is bigger than the size of the screen, no text will be displayed on simulated LED screen.

3.     Alignment

There are two different types of alignment, horizontal and vertical.  Each type of alignment has three different choices; left, right, none (horizontal), and top, bottom, none (vertical)

4.     Pause

A pause in tenths of a second for how long the selected text style will stay on the screen before the next message appears.

5.     Brightness Control

Each schedule can have its own brightness setting.  A slide bar on the screen adjusts brightness.

6.     Text Editor

The editor box is used to enter message text.  The text entered into the editor box may contain several lines, as long as it will fit on the actual screen.  To start a new line, just press the 'Enter' key.  Text in the edit box is justified according to the alignment settings.  The edited text is immediately displayed in the simulated LED screen window.  If the selected font size doesn't fit on the screen, the text will not be visible.  To edit a message, a new message must be created first using the 'New' button from the control panel.

7. Schedule

The message board has 8 different schedules.  Each schedule has its own text messages and brightness control.  The schedule starts from the date and time specified in the edit boxes.  If the date is set to all zeros, the schedule will run every day at the time specified.  In the upper part of the window there are 8 tabs (Schedule 1, Schedule 2, etc.) which are used to switch between the schedules.

8.     Control Panel

The control panel contains buttons to navigate through the messages and also to manipulate them.

The top two buttons (arrows) are used to switch between the messages.  The current message number is

displayed in the box called 'Message'.

The 'New' button is used to create a new message.

The 'Insert' button is used to insert a new message between existing messages.

The 'Delete' button is used to delete the current message.

The 'Del. all' button is used to delete all the messages from the current schedule.

The 'Test' button is used to show the display in the simulated LED screen window.

The 'Upload' button is used to transfer the messages to the message board and start the display.

The 'Display ID' box is used to select the address of the message board where the data should be transmitted to.  The address range is 1 to 255.

Menus

1.     File menu

The file menu is used to store and load messages to the file.  The choices are:

            'Open', to load previously stored messages

            'Save',  to save existing messages to a file

            'Save As', to save existing messages to a file with a name specified by the user

            'Exit', to quit the program

2.     COM menu

            This menu is used to select the COM port.  The COM (serial) port used to communicate with the message board should be selected here.