RightBooth 7.6.5 is now released.  See the Release Notes for a full list of the updates. 

This release contains the new Send to Phone feature which is explained in these training videos:

RightBooth version 7.6.1 has a new 'Print layouts' item in the Screen Editor that can be added to any of your event screens and can contain any number of your pre-designed photo print layouts.
Then when the event is playing, your event user may choose one of the layouts for RightBooth to use when printing their photos...

It is possible to allow your users to change the order of the photos on the print layout prior to the layout being printed.  Note you will require RightBooth version 7.5.31 or later for this feature.  To do this:

• Make sure your event is set up for taking photos and for photo printing. In our example we are taking 3 photos
• Go to the Screen Editor
• Select the Photo options screen
• Add a new button to the screen
• Select the button and look at its properties
• In the Action section of the Properties Toolbox, select the Click action: Reorder photos as shown in this screenshot:

Now when you play the event and after taking 3 photos, they will initially appear in the print layout in the order that they were taken:

Now if the user clicks the Reorder photos button, the photo order will be changed as follows:

The user can continue to click the Reorder photos button until the photos are in the preferred order, prior to printing.

A number of questions were recently posted on the RightBooth Facebook forum.
Here are the questions, together with the answers:

- ​How to take one photo and print at 10x15cm?
- How to make and use your own print layouts?
Watch video:

- Are there any 'printing' animations or 'countdown' animations?
​The RightBooth Media Library comes with a limited number of video animations that can be included on your event screens.  They are all installed in the following folder:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\RightBooth7 Library\Videos

RightBooth is able to play many video file types including MP4, AVI and WMV files, so  it will be able to play most files that can be obtained from any of the companies who specialise in creating video animations for mirror booths and photo booths, such as:
Mirror Booth Animations

​Simply search the Internet for 'animations for mirror booths'

- Is there a way to share photos to Instagram, Facebook or Whatsapp?
RightBooth can currently send files by email, upload files to websites via SFTP, copy files to network folders and upload files to cloud storage services such as Google Drive and DropBox.

Sharing files directly from RightBooth onto social media sites is currently not available but we continue to research this feature. However, it can be achieved using tools like IFTTT and Zapier that can automate the transfer of files uploaded by RightBooth to cloud storage drives, then onto social media accounts.  Further information is available in the RightBooth User Manual.

RightBooth version 7.5.25 introduces the following new features that can help improve the quality and variety of your quiz and survey events.

1 - Scoring Questions
When entering answers on the Multi Choice Answer table, you can now choose to make any question a scoring question by ticking the appropriate check box under the new ‘Correct’ column.  Note that specifying a correct answer is optional. 
In this example screenshot you can see that the answer 'Washing D.C.' has been set as the correct answer to the multi choice question: 'Capital of USA?'...

2 - Random question order
​You can now optionally randomise the order that the questions are presented to each user.  In the above screenshot you can see that the Random order check box has been ticked so each user will be shown the questions in a different order.

3 - Question Amount
You can now specify the number of questions you would like each user to be shown. This value can be particularly useful in combination with the 'Random order' setting where you want to show a different sub-set of questions to each user.  In the above screenshot each user will be shown 2 of the 3 questions randomly selected from the table.
Note: Entering ‘0’ causes the Amount value to be ignored, meaning all users will be shown all the question in the table.

​​4 - Show the Question Score to Users
Two new text variables are now available for use in any label item content.
{CURRENTSCORE} - This will show the current score for the current user.  The current score is the total number of multi choice questions that the user has answered correctly (see above).
{QUESTIONSASKEDCOUNT} - This will show the current number of questions that the user has answered.
In this screenshot we have added a new text item to each of the Question screens and used the two new text variables in the label content to show the user their current score, which will then be updated on-the-fly as users progress through their questions...

Starting with RightBooth version 7.5.24 we have introduced a White Label Editor for use with RightBooth.
The White Label Editor allows you to completely customize the main RightBooth window to make the app look like your own product.  This can be useful when you have created a RightBooth powered solution and you want to:

• promote your company within the app
• restrict the use of certain RightBooth features
• hide the fact that you have used RightBooth as your solution.

Let's look at how this works using an example.

The company J&M Gifts have used RightBooth to create a survey event that will be used by visitors to their exhibition stand and they want to make RightBooth look like their own app.

1 - Unmodified RightBooth
First let's remind ourselves what RightBooth looks like.  Here is the unmodified main window ready to play the survey event:

2 - The White Label Editor 
J&M Gifts now run the White Label Editor.  In the screenshot below you can see that they have renamed the app, added a logo and a background, added company information, hidden various RightBooth buttons and changed various user interface colours.  And finally they have switched on the White Label feature...

3 - The Modified RightBooth
They now exit the White Label Editor, restart RightBooth and this is how the main window looks with all their white label features applied:

Notice that there is no mention of RightBooth on the main window, everything is branded 'J&M Gifts'  and their users may only Play the survey or Exit the app.

Would you like to use the White Label Editor?
The White Label Editor is freely available to all our RightBooth customers.

• Ensure you download and install RightBooth version 7.5.24 (or later).
• Contact us and ask about the White Label Editor, also stating your RightBooth product code.
• We will then send you details on how to access the White Label Editor for your own use.

RightBooth version 7.5.21 adds the new button 'Game' to the 'Add items' toolbox in the Screen Designer.  This allows you to add interactive games onto your event screens.  RightBooth includes 16 pre-selected games to choose from:

It is also possible to add further games that are hosted at various online websites and this training video explains how to do this:

RightBooth version 7.5.19 is released today.

This version now includes the ability to use the RightBooth green screen background removal feature when taking photos with a DSLR camera.

Details on how to do this can be found here:

https://www.rightbooth.com/greenscreen-setup.html

This video tutorial shows how to use RightBooth to design and present an interactive map or plan that will allow users to locate items on the plan.

Typical uses include locating:

• guest's seats at a wedding reception
• company stands at an exhibition
• shops in a shopping mall
• places of interest in a city centre

IMPORTANT Update:  27/10/20
I forgot to mention this important point in the video.
Please ensure that you untick the following option:
RightBooth Event Designer --> Event type --> Interruptible...

If this option is not ticked then the user can interact with any items on the information event screens that have click actions assigned to them. This will allow the seating plan interactivity to work as shown in the video.

If this option is ticked, then any user input into the event on any screen will cause RightBooth to interrupt the information event and start playing the event that is specified in the Event flow section of the Event Designer.

New update released: version 7.5.14.  This includes a new set of image assets that will help you when designing your interactive seating plan event screens for wedding receptions and other events:

Note: You will need to download and install the full product from here to find these assets in the new library folder: Tables and chairs within the RightBooth Media Image Library.

​This release also adds the new feature: Add more screens which allows you to quickly and easily replicate a user defined screen multiple times in the Screen Designer. 

A training video will be posted soon that shows how to make use of these new assets and features when designing interactive seating plans within your RightBooth events.

Update 26/10/20
If you are running RightBooth in a language other than English and you want these new image to appear in your RightBooth Media Library then you need to do the following:

• Download and install the latest full product from here
• Delete the file licensing.txt from your translated RightBooth media.  For example if you are running RightBooth in Spanish then delete this file:

You may want to create many copies of a particular label item, such that each label contains a different word or phrase but is identical to the original label in all other respects, such as font style, colours, shadowing, etc.

Starting with RightBooth version 7.5.13 you can now create copies of a label item, by right clicking on the label item and then from the popup menu choose:

Create more labels – Click this menu option to show a dialog box into which you can type one or more lines of text.  Then click the OK button to automatically create individual label items for each of the lines of text.

​Here is a example video of this enhancement in action:

Starting with RightBooth version 7.5.12 you can now capture images of your event screens, saving them either as JPG files or PNG files.

When the screen image is saved, all items on the event screen will also be captured and saved inclusively within the image.  This feature is therefore useful in letting you use the Screen Editor much like a graphic design tool (such as the GIMP) for creating your own image designs composed from multiple items on the screen.

To capture an event screen, first show the chosen screen in the Screen Editor, then right click anywhere on the screen background (i.e. avoid clicking on any of the items on the screen). You will then see a popup menu containing the following choice:

Capture screen – You can click this menu item to show a File Save dialog box, prompting you to save the event screen as an image in the Backgrounds section of your RightBooth Media Library.  Note that in the dialog you can choose to save the image either as a JPG or a PNG file.

This screenshot shows an example of saving a Menu screen as a JPG file in the RightBooth Backgrounds folder...

Starting from RightBooth version 7.5.10 you can now configure RightBooth so that it accepts spoken commands for controlling the playing event.

Update 07/10/20:  Version 7.5.11 fixes a problem where commands are not immediately recognized on each new event screen. After installing version 7.5.10, run RightBooth and click the About button, then click the 'Check for Update' button.

How To

To turn on voice commands, go to RightBooth User input settings and tick the option: Voice. 

Then in addition to your chosen user input method (e.g. Mouse or Touchscreen), voice commands will also be enabled for all your events.

You will need to ensure your event is designed for voice commands as follows:

In the Screen editor, on each event screen where you would like voice command control, add one or more label items.  Type the word or phrase into the label item(s) that you would like to be used as a voice command.  Then add an appropriate click action on the label item.

For example, if you would like RightBooth to progress from the Start screen to the next screen in the event by saying ‘Start now’:

• Add a label item on the Start screen.
• Enter the text: ‘Start now’ as the content for the label item.
• Show the properties for the label item and set its Click action to ‘Next screen’.

By default, some event screens have label items with predefined click actions and are therefore automatically enabled to accept voice commands.  Examples include:

• ‘Choose recording’ screen: ‘Record a video’, ‘Take a photo’, ‘Record a karaoke’, etc.
• ‘Video options’ and ‘Photo options’ screens:  ‘Redo’, ‘Finished’, ‘Print’, ‘Cancel’, ‘Back’, ‘Next’, etc

Note that you can alter the content of any label item on any screen to provide your own preferred words or phrases as voice commands. 

When speaking your commands, RightBooth voice recognition takes the spoken input from the Windows default microphone input device, so you must ensure that you have a working microphone attached to your system.  This can be configured in Windows Settings under the section: System--> Sound.

Check out this latest training video on Voice Commands:

​And here is the event file I used in the video.  Simply download and save it in the folder:  C:\Users\your_user_name\Documents\RightBooth7

Here's an idea for how you might use Voice Input:

And here is the event file I used in the video:

​Note: The label items containing each of the spoken guest names are positioned off the right hand edge of the Start screen.  So in the Screen Editor, if you zoom the view down to 0.7 you will see them.

2 - Make the Event Passive
​You don't want anyone interacting with the event, so you can make it ignore all user input. Note this action is only necessary if you are going to be displaying your event on a touchscreen.

• From the main screen, click 'Design'

• On the Event Designer --> Event type, untick 'Interruptable'.

This will ensure that none of the event screens can be interacted with, in other words the event will run passively.

3 - Remove the Start screen

• Click on the Event structure tab. 

Note that with an information event the only default event screens available are the 'Start' screen and the 'Multiple monitors' screens.  For our information system we are simply going to create our own event screens therefore we do not require a Start screen, so:

• Untick: 'Include the Start screen':

4 - Add some screens to your event
This is where you need to plan your screens and get creative. Decide how many screens you require and what you want to show on them.  For our example we will show 2 adverts.

• From the main RightBooth panel, click 'Edit' to visit the Screen Editor.
• On the Screen Editor Toolbox, tick 'Add items'
• On the Add items toolbox click 'Screen' to add a new screen, naming it Advert1
• Then repeat and add a second screen, naming it Advert2, as shown in this screenshot:

5 - Set the Display Time for each Screen

• Select a screen on the list.
• On the Screen Editor Toolbox, tick Properties.
• ​On the Screen properties toolbox enter a value into the Timeout text box. This is the number of seconds you want the screen to be shown.

In this example we have set screen Advert1 to show for 4 seconds:

Note in the above screen shot, the textbox next to the '4' seconds is empty.  By leaving this text box empty,  ( when the event is playing ) RightBooth will move on to showing the next screen in the list (Advert2) after 4 seconds.
And if you also leave this box empty for Advert2, RightBooth will go back to showing the first screen in the list (Advert1) after Advert2 times out.

6 - Add content to your screens
Now you can get creative and add your text, images, videos and or web pages to each of your screens.  There are lots of tutorials on our website on how to do this.

7 - Save and Play Your Event
In our example,  our event will run indefinately, alternating between showing Advert1 and Advert2 for 4 seconds.  You are obviously free to add as many screens as you require for your information and advertising kiosk.

Further Suggestions

Auto advancing video
If you are playing a video on one of your event screens and you would like RightBooth to move to the next screen when the video finishes, just set the screen timeout property to: 'On video item'. 
​
Here we have added a video item to the Advert1 screen and we have set the screen property to 'On video item':

Screen Animations
When playing the event, by default RightBooth will simply cut from one screen to another without any animation effects.  Try adding an animation to each screen.

• Choose a screen from the screen list.
• On Screen properties, choose an Animation effect from the drop down list and set the animation properties as required.

In this example for Advert1 we have set the Animation to 'Carousel swap' to occur over a period of 2 seconds:

Notes:

• You can have the same or a different animation effect on each screen.
• The screen animation will happen when RightBooth shows a screen, so in the above example the Carousel swap animation will happen when transitioning from screen Advert2 to screen Advert1.

Random Ordering of Screens
You can name your screens is such a way that RightBooth will display them in a random order.  Full details available here: Random screens

Updating Screen Content Remotely
It is possible to alter the content of your screens without actually stopping the event from playing or from having to physically visit the kiosk.  Full details on how to do this can be found here:  Making Remote Changes

Starting with version 7.5.7 we have now relaxed the licensing restrictions on both the  RightBooth Standard and RightBooth Professional products to allow you to install the software (together with a purchased product code) on equipment that you are to provide to third parties on a permanent basis (e.g. system sales).

This process will be deemed a transfer of software ownership and all you need to do is to inform us of the new owners of your product together with the installed RightBooth product code(s) at the time of sale/transfer so that we can update our product code database accordingly.

Please note that this new licensing provision does NOT apply to any earlier version of RightBooth so if you intend to provide RightBooth powered equipment to others on a permanent basis, please make sure you include RightBooth version 7.5.7 or higher on your equipment.

See here for more details on the general Terms of Use for RightBooth:
https://www.rightbooth.com/terms-of-use.html

Also please refer to the new license wording that now ships in version 7.5.7 (or higher) which can be accessed by clicking the 'View license' button on the RightBooth 'About' panel:

​Starting with RightBooth version 7.5.5 it is now possible to give your event screen(s) a transparent background, which then lets you place event screen content directly on top of other applications. This then provides you with a quick and seamless way to access RightBooth's features directly within other applications.

We will explain this feature using the following scenario:

You are going to give an interactive presentation using a series of Powerpoint slides and you also need the ability to use RightBooth at any time during your presentation in order to take a photo or record a video.

Here’s how:
​
1 - Configure RightBooth for transparent event screen overlay

• In RightBooth Settings --> Start/Stop --> Setup, tick the new option: Allow transparent event screens.  (introduced in version 7.5.5).
• In RightBoooth Settings --> Security, tick the option: Event on top

You will need to restart RightBooth for these settings to be applied.  RightBooth is now configured to i) allow transparent event screens to be designed and ii) always play its events on top of other Windows applications.
We’ll now make use of these features.

2 - Create an event with a transparent background 
Create a standard RightBooth event that lets users choose to record a video or take a photo. The event has a Start screen which is edited to have a transparent background as follows:

• Run RightBooth. On the main screen, click ‘Edit’ to go to the Screen Editor.
• On the Screen Editor toolbox, click Properties to show the Screen Properties for the Start screen (1)
• On the Screen Properties toolbox, select the single colour Background radio button (2)
• Click on the single background colour box to show the Colour Selector panel (3):

You will now find that the underlying application is both visible and able to be interacted with.  In our example screenshot above you can now clearly see Powerpoint running behind RightBooth.

3 - Position Event Screen Content
Continuing with our example, return to the Powerpoint application and start the presentation playing fullscreen, and then return back to the RightBooth screen editor to see the following result with the event screen content showing on top of the fullscreen Powerpoint slide:

At this point you can now edit, size and reposition the RightBooth screen content so that it composes better with the underlying application.

​In this screen shot we have edited the RightBooth text, changed its colour to match the Powerpoint text, and moved it so that it sits in the bottom right corner of the Powerpoint slide:

​4 - Play the Event
Now save and play the event file to see the following result showing the Powerpoint slide running behind the playing RightBooth event:

In this situation, Powerpoint continues to be fully interactive, so clicking on the Powerpoint slide will cause it to progress to the next slide while continuing to show the RightBooth transparent Start screen text at the bottom right:

If you click (at any time) on the RightBooth text you will then be shown the next screen in the RightBooth event, effectively hiding the Powerpoint slide and allowing you to take a photo and/or record video, and after completing the task RightBooth will return to showing the transparent Start screen again, at which point you are able to continue interacting with the Powerpoint presentation.

Here’s another example of mixing RightBooth with the Sky Go app. This is a screen shot of Sky Go without RightBooth overlaid:

And here is RightBooth overlaying a blue styled button and text which gives access to take a photo:

I’m sure you creative folk will think of other uses for transparent event screen backgrounds.  And many thanks (once again) to Mike Ridge for suggesting this new feature.

Modern phones and graphics tablets are fitted with extremely good cameras that rival (or even surpass) the quality you can expect from many webcams.  So wouldn’t it be great if you could use your phone or tablet to provide its camera input into RightBooth while it is running on a Windows computer?

Well now you can !

​This article explains how to hook up your phone or iPad  to a Windows computer and then use it as a webcam for recording videos and photos in RightBooth.  As an example, here you can see the live camera feeding from an Apple iPad directly into RightBooth which is running on a laptop running Windows 10:

Note: Throughout this article where appropriate we will refer to your iPhone, iPad or Android phone as ‘your device’.

Installing and Setup

On Your Windows Computer
1) If you are planning to use an Apple device ( iPhone or iPad ) then you must install iTunes on your computer. Freely available here:   https://www.apple.com/za/itunes/download/.

Note: If you are planning to use an Android phone, then iTunes is not required.
​
2) Download, install and run iVCam from here: https://www.e2esoft.com/ivcam/
iVCam is an amazing piece of software that allows you to obtain the camera feed from your device and present it to Windows as a virtual webcam for use in RightBooth.

On Your Device

1. Download and install the iVCam app from the relevant App Store for your device.
2. Connect your device to your computer using a USB data cable.  Preferably you should connect to a USB3 port.
3. Ensure your device is recognised by your computer and accept the device as a ‘Trusted device’.
4. If you are using an Apple device you will see iTunes start up on your computer. Note that the iTunes app doesn’t actually need to be running for this solution to work,  so you can close iTunes to free up some memory.
5. Run the iVCam app on your device and accept the app requests to access the device’s camera and microphone.

Note: If you purchase a Product Code for iVCam on your computer, it is not then necessary to purchase another code for the iVCam app on your device.

If all is well, then the iVCam app on your computer will connect to the iVCam app on your device and you will see the live camera feed on your computer.

Configuring iVCam

On Your Computer
In the iVCam app on your computer set the audio input to Speaker (e2eSoft VAudio):

​Note that each time you Apply new settings in iVCam you may need to restart the iVCam app on your device.

Once you have configured iVCam and it is showing the feed from your device, you can effectively minimise the app to the Windows Taskbar and forget about it.

Recording Audio
To be able to capture audio from your device you may need to download and install the Virtual Sound Card app on your computer: https://www.e2esoft.com/vsc/.

• Run the Virtual Sound Card app.
• Select the Microphone (e2eSoft VAudio) option and patch it to a suitable audio output on your computer.  You may need to experiment with this.  Example from my development PC:

Then click the ‘ > >’ button to start the Virtual Sound Card:

​Like iVCam, Virtual Sound Card will run in Trial mode, allowing you to evaluate it.
If you find it works for you then you can purchase a Product Code which at the time of writing costs around $20.

Configuring RightBooth to Work With iVCam

• Run RightBooth
• Go to Settings --> Cameras --> Webcam video
• In the Device list, select: e2eSoft iVCam
• In the 'Video size' list select: Default.  RightBooth will then show you the default size for your device. In our example screenshot below you can see it is showing 1280x720, which correctly matches the setting in iVCam.
• Set Data type to RGB24
• Set 'Recording frame rate' to match the FPS setting you chose in iVCam.  In this screenshot you can see it has been set to 15:

• Go to Settings --> Cameras --> Webcam photo
• In the Photo Size list select Default. Again, RightBooth will show the default size for your device.

IMPORTANT.  The ‘Default’ options were introduced in RightBooth version 7.5.3 to correct a bug that exists specifically when using iVCam.  iVCam sometimes fails to provide the correct video sizes to RightBooth, which effectively means that in this situation the RightBooth Video size list cannot always be relied upon.

However, by choosing the Default option, RightBooth will interrogate the webcam driver directly to determine which video size was chosen in the iVCam settings (see earlier). 
Therefore we recommend that you upgrade to version 7.5.3 for this solution to work correctly.

If you are using a version of RightBooth less than 7.5.3, you may run into problems where RightBooth could be using the wrong size for its iVCam video manipulations, which in turn will cause issues with many of RightBooths features, including video cropping, overlays, inking, stamps and item positioning in event screens and print layouts.


That’s it. Job done !
RightBooth will now use your device to record videos and take photos, and the quality is very good.

OK.  Imagine how thin you could make your physical video booth housing if you used an iPhone instead of a webcam or a DSLR camera.  !!

Happy building.

​A special shout out to Mike Ridge for drawing my attention to iVCam and also for helping me to work all this out.

Cheers,
​Nigel.

Today we are releasing RightBooth 7.5.0.

This is a new major product release.  You can find details of what's new here.

Notes

• This version of RightBooth has been designed to be the last new major product release.  Therefore all future feature additions and bug fixes to RightBooth will be applied to this major product release as an ongoing process.
• When you purchase this new major product you will also receive 12 months of ongoing updates and support starting from your product code activation date.
• Further update and support periods may be purchased as and when required.
• This product is independent of any previous major RightBooth product releases (3 thru 7).
• All product codes from previous major product releases (3 thru 7) are not valid codes for this new major product release.

You may have noticed that some fonts do not appear in RightBooth's Screen Editor font list.   This is an issue that affects many Windows applications and to be honest I am not 100% sure why this happens.  But there is a solution...  It is possible to create a new font (from the offending font) which will then be compatible with (and appear in) RightBooth.  Here's how:

For this article I will use the font Calissha Script, which can be downloaded here:

http://fontsfree.net/calissha-script-webfont-font-download.html

If you install Calissha Script in Windows and then run RightBooth you will find that it does not appear for selection in RightBooth's font list even though it has installed correctly in Windows.

To resolve this:

• Use Glyphr. https://www.glyphrstudio.com/online/.  This is an excellent online font editor which I can thoroughly recommend.
• In Glyphr, click 'Load', then 'Browse for a file' to upload the Calissha Script font file
• The font will now be imported into the Glyphr Studio Editor
• On the Glyphr menu, choose 'Project settings'
• Change the Project Name from 'My font' to a name of your choice, in this example I used 'Calissha2'
• On the Glyphr menu, choose 'export font'
• Scroll down and click the button 'Export OTF Font'

The new font will be downloaded to your PC and you can then install this into your Windows fonts as follows:

• Run Windows Settings
• Choose Personalisation
• Choose Fonts
• Drag and drop your new font file onto the 'Add fonts' panel to install the new OTF font onto your system.

Here you can see I have installed the original 'Calissha Script' and the new 'calissha2' fonts on my system:

Now when you run RightBooth you will be able to choose the 'calissha2' font in the Screen Editor font list...

Note in the above screen shot that the 'Calissha Script' font is not listed.
If anyone knows why this happens,  please let me know.