Xibo 1.8.1 Overlay Layouts on Windows clients

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I’ve just upgraded from 1.7.9 to 1.8.1, and am trying to understand how Overlay layouts work. I would like to include a logo, clock, stock quote, and other info in a ~100px tall footer that appears on every layout I schedule. I am using the Windows 1.8.1 client on a Windows 10 Pro 32-bit Intel PC stick.

I read the User Manual section on Scheduling overlay layouts
and it seems pretty simple. I’ve created a “regular” layout with a white background and one text region, and a very simple Overlay layout also with a white background and another (non-overlapping) text region, and scheduled the regular layout as an “always” layout, and then scheduled the overlay layout as an overlay, also for “always” on the same test display.

At first it seems to work fine. I can see both the regular layout, and the overlay content on top of it on the test display. But then, after a few minutes, and/or if I close the Xibo client on the display and re-start it, the overlay content disappears. I haven’t been able to identify what factors determine whether or not the overlay content appears.

The User Manual section on Scheduling has this to say about Overlays:

The Display Order on Overlay Layouts determines the order in which the Layouts regions are applied to the overlay and compliments the regions own Layer settings.

So I have tested several different Display Order settings in the normal layout’s schedule and the overlay layout’s schedule:

  • Overlay Layout has a positive, nonzero Display Order; Regular layout has Display Order = 0
  • Regular Layout has a positive, nonzero Display Order; Overlay layout has Display Order = 0
  • Both Overlay and Regular layouts have Display Order = 0

So… how is this supposed to work? Should the overlay’s schedule display order be greater than, equal to, or less than the regular layout(s) that it is meant to overlay atop?

Also Overlay issues (two of them) seems to at least imply that perhaps even with 1.8.1, Overlay layouts might not work at all on Windows? Is that just as it pertains to overlapping regions?

Finally, does the background color of overlay layouts have any significance? Is there any accommodation for alternating text color in an overlay depending on whether it is being overlaid atop a light background or a dark background? Most of my layouts are consistent with a white background, but occasionally a dark background is called for. I would hate to lose visibility of the overlay content.

I should add that, despite this potential issue, I am otherwise quite pleased with 1.8.x thus far - especially the new API. You have done a tremendous job with the new version!

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From your other topic, I believe that your overlay layout was scheduled with ‘Always’ daypart, which is absolutely fine.

The issue is most likely related to overlapping regions (even worse if you have something other than .jpg set as a background image for your layout).

For example if you’d have your ‘main’ layout with nothing at the bottom of it (that’s where the overlay layout will be)
Then your overlay layout with only that 100px footer as you mentioned, then that should work on windows clients as well.

Although if there will be any overlapping regions then it will not display it as you want it to.

Alternatively Android client supports overlapping regions/true transparency if you’d like to try that.

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