Installation and Configuration
From mAirListWiki
Contents |
Installing mAirList
PLEASE NOTE that you can use mAirList for thirty days for free. If you want to use mAirList after that time, you will need a licence (see the License page for details). The only difference between the unlicensed and licensed versions of mAirList is the licence file: they are otherwise identical, and there are no restrictions on the unlicensed version.
Make sure you have enough time available to evaluate mAirList before you install it, otherwise mAirList might 'time out' before you have completed your evaluation.
- Download the latest version from the mAirList Download page. Download the setup.exe version.
- Like all downloaded files, you should scan the downloaded file for viruses etc. before proceeding.
- Run the setup file and follow the prompts, choosing the features you want to install.
mAirList is now installed in its default state, which is a single Playlist with three Players, plus a six-player Cartwall.
Please remember at all times that mAirList is a 'construction set' which you can use to build your ideal playout system, so do not judge anything based on the way it currently looks and works. The default setup and layout is, to coin a phrase, 'only one of many possible futures.'
Configuring mAirList
NOTE: If you plan to make significant changes to mAirList's visual configuration (colours, layout, etc.), you will find all the information you need in the Wiki topic Custom Skins and Layouts.
Audio File Formats
As supplied, mAirList can play WAV, MP3, AIFF, and OGG format audio files. You can easily add other audio file formats to mAirList by installing the appropriate BASS audio player engine extension (add-on) and making a few simple mAirList Configuration changes (see below).
WMA Audio Files
NOTE that even with the BASS WMA extension installed, mAirList cannot play protected WMA files (the licence to allow this is prohibitively expensive). We therefore suggest that you do not use WMA files with mAirList unless they are unprotected WMA files created by your station personnel.
To add an Audio File format to mAirList:
- Find and download the appropriate add-on from the BASS add-on page.
- Scan the downloaded file for viruses etc.
- Extract the DLL file(s) and copy them into your mAirList program folder (mAirList 2.1: the plugin sub-folder).
- In mAirList Configuration (see below), add the new DLL names (mAirList 2.0 only) and file extensions.
- Start mAirList and check that files with the new extensions appear in the Browser, and play correctly.
Configuration program
mAirList has a built-in Configuration program which you use to change the way mAirList operates, change the number of Playlists or Players, and so on. To run the Configuration program, click the mAirList Configuration icon on your desktop.
When you start evaluating mAirList, the Configuration program is a very useful way to quickly get to know the kinds of changes you can make, and to try out different settings. Then, when you are ready to fully customise mAirList to suit your studio, you will know exactly the changes you want, and how to make them.
The options you can change using the Configuration program are listed in the Wiki topic Configuration Options.
Planning Customisation
Once you are familiar with all the mAirList options, you will find it very useful to take some time out to truly plan your final mAirList customisations to suit your station and studio requirements. Most station presentation managers know how their ideal playout system would look and work, and how the station staff would use it; so put all that experience and all those wish lists together and work out exactly what you want. Then use mAirList configuration and customisation to build it!
Playlists and Players
A good place to start is to work out how many Playlists you need. Most stations, especially those which use external scheduling software to produce full playlists with ads. and jingles already inserted, will only want one Playlist. If you are more of a 'drag-and-drop' station, but with a need to schedule ads., you might want a second Playlist—with smaller Players!—just for ad. breaks, scheduled using the Event Scheduler. You might even want to add a third 'jingle palette' Playlist purely to assemble a set of jingles from several Cart Sets, or to play news jingles in sequence? Only you know what is right for your station!
Having decided how many Playlists you need, you have probably also decided how many Players you want for each Playlist.
- In the stable versions of mAirList (2.0.x), we suggest that you have a minimum of two Players per Playlist, to prevent 'running out of Players' if items are very short.
- In the development versions of mAirList (2.1.x), items can 'overlap' in the same Player. This makes a very simple (but inflexible) automation layout of a single Playlist with one Player possible.
Many studios use a layout of a single Playlist with three Players but, as with most features in mAirList, the choice is yours!
How It Looks
With those basics sorted out, you can start designing how you want the screen should look. Agree your design while it's still a sketch on paper, because it's much easier to iron out any problems before you start making a layout.ini file. Use a graphics program to 'rough out' your design and draw boxes to represent all the Players, Playlist, Browser… in fact, every element of your design. Remember to allow space for the status bar and message dropdown at the bottom of the screen: if your design overlaps these, it can look a little strange. If you have a dual-monitor system, don't forget to make your draft design large enough to cover both monitors. Keep revising your layout until it looks 'just right.'
Save your finished design as an image file.
Once the basic graphic layout is agreed, you can start to prepare your layout.ini file, as described in the Custom Skins and Layouts page. Open your draft design image file in your graphics program and use the program's features to give you initial values for the Top, Left, Width, and Height values for each screen element.
When you create and test your layout.ini file, you will find that it will probably take several attempts and adjustments to position everything exactly as you want it: this is normal! Don't worry yet about colours and fonts—you will sort those out as part of your next step—but do expect to revisit layout.ini again afterwards to make a few final nit-picky adjustments.
Back to Configuration
Your next step is to revisit the Configuration and make sure that all the settings are as you want them. Do you want to show ramps or not? Show progress bars in the Playlist or Players? Which buttons do you want on each Player? Which sound cards and card outputs do you want to assign to each Player, and to PFL? Get all the basics right at this stage, and you will not need to worry later about working all this out in a big rush(!).
Skin Deep
With all the basic layout and functionality working, you can set up all the colours and fonts by using the information in the Custom Skins and Layouts page and Appendix B of the manual to create a skin.ini file.
As with layout.ini, expect several attempts to get your skin.ini working just as you want it. Remember to thoroughly test every Player, Playlist, and the Cartwall: many skin.ini font, colour, and size problems only show up in very specific circumstances. For example, a Player which is in PFL and CUE and NEXT all at the same time might not be able to properly display all three and a combined elapsed/remain time in your chosen font and size. (Your options: change one or more fonts and/or sizes, or change the layout to make the Player wider. This is what we meant by 'expect to revisit layout.ini!')
FONT TIPS:
- Arial Narrow, which is installed on many Windows PCs, is useful for text in narrow Players.
- Tahoma is usually the best font to use if you need a font size of 8 or less.
- Avoid flashy 'display' fonts: they may look lovely on a screen capture, but 'flashy' fonts are usually much more difficult and tiring to read than 'old favourites' like Verdana, Arial, Georgia, Times New Roman, and similar 'plain' fonts; especially if you are staring at them for several hours. Also, you avoid a font file hunt when you need to install mAirList on another PC.
- Bold (…Style=1) is usually the best Style; italics (…Style=2, or 3 for bold and italic) are often difficult to read and are usually best avoided; and don't forget that plain text (…Style=0) is an option, and offers a pleasant visual contrast for those bits of text you don't need to be able to read from fifty metres away!
- Remember that many people are slightly colour-blind. Avoid red/green and green/blue colour combinations where the two colours are similar in brightness (dark cherry red on light lime green, for example, would be fine). Once again, it may look 'dull' compared to your original '24 subtle hues of carefully matched orange, green, and cyan' concept, but the upside is that you won't have any presenters complaining to you that (for example) they can't read the track names in Players.
Designed for Purpose
When your studio layout and skin setup are complete and working, we suggest that you create different customised layout and skin setups for other off-air purposes.
At minimum, we suggest you consider:
- a production layout which presenters and producers use offline to create show playlist (.mlp) files.
- a training layout (with potentially 'dangerous' features like tagging removed).
- a library layout which any staff can use to tag files and check fade points; though you may prefer to use the supplied mAirListTag program for this.
And Finally…
This whole section is only a suggested list. The most important thing is that you do plan how you configure mAirList, rather than letting it 'just happen' over time!
