ScheduleTicker

Using ScheduleTicker

ScheduleTicker is a Java-applet and consists of a set of Java class files. These files should reside in a directory named embe/ticker. For faster loading, two archive versions of the applet are also supplied. They are called ticker.zip and ticker.cab and they reside in the embe-directory.

To insert ScheduleTicker into an HTML-document you use the <APPLET>-tag. This is how it looks:

<APPLET CODE="embe.ticker.ScheduleTicker" ARCHIVE="embe/ticker.zip" WIDTH=width HEIGHT=height>
<PARAM NAME="cabbase" VALUE="embe/ticker.cab">
...
</APPLET>

To configure ScheduleTicker you use applet-parameters and a data file. They are both described below.

Note! Don't forget to take a look at the examples provided. Studying examples is often more instructive than just reading boring manuals.

Applet parameters

Applet parameters are placed between the <APPLET> and </APPLET> tags. The general syntax for an applet parameter is:

<PARAM NAME="name of parameter" VALUE="parameter value">

The following applet parameters can be set:

Name	Default	Description
Datafile	tickerdata.txt	The name of the data file. The name should be given relative to the HTML-document. See below for a description of the contents of the data file.
ImagePos	South	The position of the images (in relation to the text). The position can be North, South, East or West.
ImageSize	50	The size of the image. If ImagePos is North or South, ImageSize will represent the height of the image. If ImagePos is East or West it will represent the width.
BGColor	White	The background color. Colors are specified in the same way as in HTML, i.e. with a hex string. (For example #FFFFFF = white.)
TextColor	Black	The color of the text.
BorderColor	Black	The color of the border around the applet.
FontName	Helvetica	Name of font to use. The following names will work fine on all platforms: Helvetica - without serifs TimesRoman - with serifs Courier - typewriter font You could use other names but it might not work on all platform/browser combinations.
FontStyle	Plain	The style of the font. Can be Plain, Bold or Italic
FontSize	12	The size of the font.
TextDelay	3000	The time, in milliseconds, between changing the texts.
ImageDelay	5000	The time, in milliseconds, between changing the images.
TextTarget	_self	The frame where the new page should be shown, when a text item is clicked. Use any of the following values: _self - show in current window _parent - show in parent window _top - show in top-most window _blank - show in new unnamed window "newWin" - show in new window named newWin "frame" - show in frame named frame This value can be overridden by individual text items by specifying another target in the datafile (see below).
ImageTarget	_self	The frame where the new page should be shown, when an image item is clicked. See TextTarget for possible values.

The datafile

The datafile is a text file containing information about the texts and images to be shown. Each row in the datafile represents an item to be shown in the applet. The rows shall be in the following format:

Type of item|Time constraint|Text or URL to image|URL to go to when clicked on|Target window

Type of item

Specifies if this row is a text or image item. The value should be t for text items and i for image items.

Time constraint

This is where you specify when the item should be shown. If you don't want to specify a time constraint (i.e. the item should always be shown) just enter a *. Otherwise, the time constraint should be in this format:

Date or weekday,Start time,Run time

Date or weekday

Specifies when to start showing this item. Could be either a specific date or a day of the week. Dates should be in the format YYYY-MM-DD. Weekdays should be one of sun, mon, tue, wed, thu, fri, sat.

Start time

The time when to start this item. The format should be HH:MM

Run time

The running time for this item, in the format HH:MM. If you want it to run forever just enter a *.

Text or URL to image

If it is a text item then you should put the text itself here. If it's an image item you enter the location of the image. The image location should be given relative to the HTML-document.

URL to go to when clicked on

An URL to show when this item is clicked. It's safe to skip this part.

Target window

The frame where the (above) URL should be shown. This value overrides the TextTarget or ImageTarget parameters for this specific item. See TextTarget for possible values. This part can also be skipped.