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Setting up a screen

A screen is a television with a small computer behind it. Every screen is imaged from the same card; which organization it belongs to is decided afterwards, from the console.

What goes behind the television

The Pi runs Raspberry Pi OS with a desktop, and starts Chromium full-screen pointed at /display/ on your Hypeboard address — with nothing after it. No organization, no screen name, nothing identifying in the address at all. That is what lets one card be copied for every screen you own.

Do not put anything after /display/ in that address. A screen set up that way is pinned to whatever was in the link, for good, and the whole point of the setup code below is that it is not.

These imaging steps have not yet been run on real hardware end to end. The software side is tested; a Pi on an actual television is still owed. Expect to have to adjust something, and say so if you do.

Claiming a screen

Plug it in. Within a few seconds the television shows a six-character code, in very large letters, meant to be read from the back of the room. The letters and digits that look like each other are not in the alphabet it uses, so there is no O-or-zero to guess at.

The Displays screen, with a section for screens waiting to be claimed above the connected ones.
Screens waiting appear here the moment they are plugged in.

Then, from a laptop or a phone:

  1. Open Displays in the console.
  2. Choose Set up a screen.
  3. Type the code off the television, give the screen a name, and pick its board.

The screen picks it up on its own within a minute and starts playing. Nothing is typed at the television.

The code is only on the television, and that is the security. The waiting list in the console shows that a screen is waiting, never its code — otherwise one organization’s admin could point a stranger’s television at their own board. Somebody has to be able to see the glass.

A code lasts about fifteen minutes. If it runs out, the screen rolls a fresh one by itself — nobody has to go and restart it.

Moving a screen to a different board

Change its board on the Displays screen. It repoints itself within a minute, from wherever you are. You never have to go back to the room.

Retiring a screen

Revoke on the Displays screen. The television stops showing your photos, forgets its setup, and goes back to showing a setup code — ready to be claimed again, by you or by whoever gets the hardware next. Its cached photos go immediately.

Fitting the picture to the television

Text sits well inside the edge of the picture already. If your set still crops it — some older ones do — add ?overscan=5 to the address to push everything a further 5% in. It only ever moves text inward, so a value that is too small changes nothing.