Create an Information And Advertising Kiosk

Advertising kiosks. I'm sure you've seen them as you walk through a busy airport lounge or a shopping centre.  These are large, non-interactive screens driven by an internally housed PC and they display information and advertisements on a rolling slideshow basis.

​This article explains how you can use RightBooth to design your own information or advertising solution that will rival the professional kiosks you come across.

1 - Create an information event

• Run RightBooth.
• From the main screen click 'Create'
• On  the 'Create event' screen select: 'Create an information event' then click 'Next'.  Note that this option was introduced in RightBooth version 7.5.8.
• Follow the Wizard steps to choose an initial screen design and font style (you can alter all this later) , then RightBooth will create an empty information event.

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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.

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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':

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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:

Note that you can alter the order of the screens in the screen list.

• Click on any screen name in the list
• Click the Up or Down arrow buttons on the toolbox to move the selected screen up or down the list:

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'. 
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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