By combining the power of Pilot News and Flowics, you can create a playlist of social media posts and display them on your Vizrt graphics. This integration will enable you to create engaging and dynamic news or broadcast content that incorporates real-time social media updates.
In this article, we will provide you with all the information you need to set up this integration successfully.
Requirements
To get started, you'll need to ensure that you have installed:
Flowics Middleware 5.1 or higher
Viz Artist 3.8 or higher
Viz Template Wizard 8.7
Director 8.7
Whether you're running the Middleware as a standalone mode or as a service, it's essential to "Run it as administrator." This will give the Middleware the necessary permissions to read, write, and execute files on your system.
Setting up a web service
Once you have the necessary software installed, you'll need to set up a web service since Director will read XML from there. To do this, follow these steps:
Go to the webapp folder in the Middleware (usually located at \middleware-cli-X.X\webapp)
Create a subfolder within the webapp and name it "data". This is where the Middleware will write the atom files and host downloaded media.
Go to the conf folder in the Middleware and add the following two lines in the configuration file (usually located at conf\middleware.properties):
webapp.authz.type=mock
webapp.cors.allowedOrigins=*
Middleware configuration
To access the Middleware configuration settings, follow these steps:
Open Flowics and click on the "SETTINGS" option located in the top menu.
From the dropdown list, select "Middlewares."
If you cannot locate the Middlewares option in the dropdown list, feel free to reach out to our support team at support@flowics.com for assistance.
Within the Middlewares configuration settings, you need to:
Specify the path of the shared folder you previously created within the webapp. This can be done by typing the path under the "Shared Folder Path" section in the Middleware configuration settings.
Ensure that the Integration mode is set to "File."
Click on Save.
Creating a Collection Middleware Source
To add a new Middleware source, follow these steps:
Locate the "Broadcast Middleware Sources" card on your home screen and click on the "+" button.
From the catalog of available Middleware sources, select "Collection." If you cannot find this option, please contact our support team for assistance.
Setting up a Collection Middleware Source
To set up a Collection Middleware Source, you must:
Pick a collection. If you don't have one created go to the Content Inbox to create a new collection and feed it with social content. Learn more here.
Go to the Integration tab > Pick the Middleware > click on the Checkmark to connect this Middleware Source with the Middleware
In File Type select: atom
Add a file name to identify the atom file locally stored. Remember to keep the extension .atom
.atom file
It is a document format based on the XML format and allows searching for updates to content published on a website.
To see the content that is being stored in the .atom file, open your browser and type the following:
In that URL you can get the data written and downloaded by the Middleware on the web server.
This is the data that will be integrated with Template Wizard.
Pilot News - Template Wizard 8.7
Within Template Wizard the first steps are:
Connect the Template Wizard
Generate a new template.
Change scene to select the configured scene in the VizArtist
In order to configure the template within the Template Wizard you will need to download a script by clicking here and then follow the steps below:
Add a "feed linker"
Add the path into the "source" option (the path is where the .xml is located)
Press click on the "enable script" button and press double click on the event "OnFeedItemSelected"
Paste the code
Drag all the Exposed objects into the template and add the name option according to the script with the following names:
Objet Avatar-->Avatar
Object PostImge-->PostImage
Objet Author-->Author
Object Content-->Content
In the case of the Contributor object you need to add a textbox, this is because the information of the logo of the social network such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook is being taken from the.xml in the form of text and not an image
To configure your template within the Template Wizard, you will need to download a script by clicking here and then following these steps:
Add a "feed linker" to your template.
In the "source" field, add the path to where the .atom file is located.
Click on the "enable script" button and then double-click on the event "OnFeedItemSelected".
Paste the code provided in the downloaded script.
Drag all the Exposed objects into the template and add the following names:
Object Avatar --> Avatar
Object PostImage --> PostImage
Object Author --> Author
Object Content --> Content
For the Contributor object, you will need to add a text box to your template. This is because the logo of the social network (such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook) is being taken from the .atom file in the form of text rather than an image.
Once you have finished configuring the template, click on save.
Pilot News - Director 8.7
Open the Director 8.7 app and go to the Concept where you save the template and double-click to open the Template that you just created.
