Figure 6. 1Droid Configurator plug-in.


The Configurator is the component that allows the user to directly interact with a display and dynamically change some of its characteristics. The Configurator can dynamically change the Global Volume, the Background volume and the name of a display.  The rest of the data that it displays is read only.


The volume command is sent to the selected display every time the user moves the two sliders:


An important note is that the Global Volume affects everything. All components that at design time have an audio volume settings will be affected.  They will proportionally increase/ decrease their level.  The effect of this is that the global sound will go up and down but the relative volume of the components will still reflect their design setting.

When you vary the Background volume however that will only apply to the background sound which is either some audio media or radio feed as configured in the design as properties of the canvas.


The only text box that is writable is the Name.  This is so as to help the users that manage a large number (small number) of screens and they need to give them associative names.  That will help her better and easier understand where the is display and what is its role.

To change the name just type  name in the box and press enter. The new name will be transmitted to the display, and next time it reports will use the new name.  If you want to see the change immediately just press the Refresh button (top left of Controller).


Using the buttons labeled appropriately  the Configurator can Reset, Restart and even Reboot a display if the necessity arises and more:



 -  On this command the Display (selected in Controller's list) will delete its design files. This will help in case the design file is corrupted and the displays enters a loop where it continuously tries and fails to load its design files.


 - On press it will restart the 1DroidApk. The rest of the Android box will not be affected.


 - This button will completely reboot the Android box. This is equivalent to unplugging the power of the box, and plugging it back.


 -  This button will connect the current host computer to the selected display(s) for Audio communication. Communication is ONE-WAY and is from here to there. All remote displays selected will play the audio that is recorded by this machine.   A number of issues have to be observed when you use this feature:

  • remote volume can be set by the Global Volume settings slider.
  • the audio volume of the remote display (s) would however depend of the capabilities of that display. ( Not all displays are made the same!).
  • the sound that is transmitted to the remote displays is the one captured by a local (properly configured microphone). The better the microphone the better the sound quality.  


The audio settings governing the local microphone are set by pressing  the  on the right panel. This will bring up the Audio Settings Dialog Box:



Figure 6a. 1Droid Audio settings for remote communications.


  • Input device is a device that you select from the drop down list and is locally configured for audio recording.
  • Compression: PCM 11025kHz as selected above is the only compression supported fort at this time.
  • Multicast Address can be any valid multicast IP address.
  • Port can be any valid value(that is anything between 1957 and 64000).


The audio communications will not work (it will not even start) if those settings are not valid.



Some windows machines support and run with multiple network interfaces.  The Controller needs to be in the same network with the displays it controls.  For this purpose the Configurator has the drop down box on the bottom right.  The Configurator detects all the network interfaces and displays them in that box. If need to the user can select the appropriate network interface.

Note that if only one network interface exists (which is the case most of the times) the Controller would already use the correct one.


Use the information on the right side to keep an eye on the display that you are interested in.


If the Controller (you the user) selects a different display in its list of displays the information here will change to show information about the newly selected display.  If more that one display is selected at a time, the Configurator will only show information about the first display in that list.