Kiosk Mode

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Kiosk mode provides a simplified view of the images in a folder with a touch screen interface to allow users to perform simple actions such as  printing and emailing images. It is aimed at event photographers who want to be able to offer users the ability to print or email images taken during an event. The display fills the screen and is similar to the film strip view with the thumbnails down the left hand side and a larger image displayed in the main area. It is designed to be used with a touchscreen monitor and to only allow users to perform a simple set of actions. The touchscreen actions for browsing images work best on a computer running Windows 7 or later (because newer versions of Windows have better support for touchscreens than older versions of Windows) but can also be used on computers running Windows Vista.

Please note: The email examples use the email_image.exe utility from our Hotfolder Prints software which needs to be purchased separately.

 

The kiosk mode display can be selected by from the View menu (View->Kiosk Mode->Switch to kiosk mode). For best results before entering kiosk mode it is recommended that display background color is set to white (see Preferences) and film strip mode is selected so that the desired thumbnail size can be selected and the window panes adjusted to fit the thumbnail size. To update the  thumbnail list automatically when new images are added to the folder select the "Monitor folder for changes and update display automatically" option in BreezeBrowser Pro's preferences.

 

kiosk_mode

Example kiosk mode display showing a menu

 

In kiosk mode the user can touch a thumbnail on the left to display the image in the main part of the window and press and drag their finder on the thumbnails to scroll up and down. A menu of available actions is displayed when the touches the main image. An optional touchscreen keyboard can be displayed (e.g. to enter their email address) when the user selects a menu item.

 

To exit kiosk mode and return to the normal BreezeBrowser Pro display press the escape key on the keyboard. It is recommended that the keyboard is hidden away during use to prevent users from exiting the software or gaining access to the Windows desktop.

 

Setting up

 

The menu items and actions available to users can be defined by selecting "Kiosk mode settings..." from the "Kiosk mode" menu item in the View menu. This will display the kiosk mode menu settings dialog:

kiosk_menu_settings

New menu entries can be added by pressing the "Add..." button and existing entries can be edited by selecting the item from the list on the left and pressing the "Edit..." button. Menu items can be deleted by selecting them from the list and pressing the "Delete" button. The order of the menu items can be changed by selecting the menu item and clicking on the "Move up" or "Move down" buttons.

 

When the "Add..." or "Edit..." button is pressed the kiosk mode menu item editor is displayed:

kiosk_menu_settings_cancel

Enter the text to displayed to the user in the "Menu legend" text edit box and select the menu action from the dropdown list. The available actions are "Do nothing", "Print" and "Run command". The "Do nothing" option, shown in the screenshot above, does nothing other than hide the menu.

 

The "Print" option, shown in the screenshot below, resizes the image to fit the page and then prints it using the current printer settings. The text entered for the "Description shown when performing the action" is displayed for a few seconds to confirm the user's selection.

kiosk_menu_settings_print

The "Run command" option, shown below, will run a program or batch file to perform an action. An optional touchscreen keyboard can be displayed to the user allowing them to enter information such as their email address before performing the action. The appearance and behavior of the touchscreen keyboard can be defined using an XML file and keyboard image files stored in the folder specified. Please see the section on the touchscreen keyboard for details.

kiosk_menu_editor

Tokens can be used as placeholders in the command and are replaced with data entered by the user or information read from the image when the command is executed. Most of the tokens used by the HTML generator can be used but not all of them will necessarily return useful values. The following tokens are probably the most useful:

 

{user1} to {user2} - information entered by the user using the touchscreen keyboard

{file} - the filename of the image selected in the kiosk mode window e.g. IMG_0123.JPG

{dir} - the full pathname of the folder containing the image selected in the kiosk mode window e.g. C:\Photos\20110515\Prints

{parentDir} - C:\Photos\20110515

 

The full pathname of the selected image in the examples above is C:\Photos\20110515\Prints\IMG_0123.JPG

 

Note: Tokens can be enclosed by curly braces e.g. {file}, or by @ characters e.g. @file@

 

Please see the "Photobooth event example" for an example of how to define a command to email an image.