Sorry for the length... trying to be thorough.
I am designing an animated menu/marketing app that will run on a laptop and be viewed on a large HDTV (think new McDonalds/Burger King menus). My idea is to use delimited strings (written on an ini file located on the hard drive) to give the app instructions on what to show, where, and for how long. I envision a folder full of image files and animations (avi likely) that are created to specific sizes. At this time, I envision three different screen layouts: full screen, split screen, split screen with crawler. A simple scenario of what this might look like would be: Left half of the screen is a static (food) menu that stays for 30 sec, right side of the screen is a sequence of three photos that each stay for 10 sec. Next the whole screen is replaced by a full screen product video that lasts 1 min, then the scenario repeats itself until stopped manually.
Everything above is worked out and within my (limited) capabilities. What I am undecided about is a timing method. I want to preserve the flexibility to mix and match timed events on the left and right side of the screen, yet keep the code simple. The ini file will be editable to completely change the scenario's items, number of items, timing of items, and types. The code of the app will not be changed. My thinking is that each delimited string will be fed into an arrayList and .split into the number of independent areas of the screen I want to control. There will be a rule that each single string's control areas must add up to the same amount of time. Want to switch to a full screen video?? New string. Want to change the layout or size of the controlled areas?? Another new string.
I don't think I want to get into dynamically creating timer events. I worry about the timing of the left side of the screen running while the right side is reading, creating and launching multiple events. The most important thing is that the screen changes be seamless and smooth. I am wondering if the app watching a clock and responding at systemtime +10 sec is a good approach? What about a stopwatch that is set for the full time of the delimited string's total, and screen changes being set for intervals of the running time?? Of course, there is cpu time to consider.
Ideas??
I am designing an animated menu/marketing app that will run on a laptop and be viewed on a large HDTV (think new McDonalds/Burger King menus). My idea is to use delimited strings (written on an ini file located on the hard drive) to give the app instructions on what to show, where, and for how long. I envision a folder full of image files and animations (avi likely) that are created to specific sizes. At this time, I envision three different screen layouts: full screen, split screen, split screen with crawler. A simple scenario of what this might look like would be: Left half of the screen is a static (food) menu that stays for 30 sec, right side of the screen is a sequence of three photos that each stay for 10 sec. Next the whole screen is replaced by a full screen product video that lasts 1 min, then the scenario repeats itself until stopped manually.
Everything above is worked out and within my (limited) capabilities. What I am undecided about is a timing method. I want to preserve the flexibility to mix and match timed events on the left and right side of the screen, yet keep the code simple. The ini file will be editable to completely change the scenario's items, number of items, timing of items, and types. The code of the app will not be changed. My thinking is that each delimited string will be fed into an arrayList and .split into the number of independent areas of the screen I want to control. There will be a rule that each single string's control areas must add up to the same amount of time. Want to switch to a full screen video?? New string. Want to change the layout or size of the controlled areas?? Another new string.
I don't think I want to get into dynamically creating timer events. I worry about the timing of the left side of the screen running while the right side is reading, creating and launching multiple events. The most important thing is that the screen changes be seamless and smooth. I am wondering if the app watching a clock and responding at systemtime +10 sec is a good approach? What about a stopwatch that is set for the full time of the delimited string's total, and screen changes being set for intervals of the running time?? Of course, there is cpu time to consider.
Ideas??