I have a dry erase board and markers in my gameroom, and while I like the simplicity, there are a few problems.

1. Keeping the scores in order is a pain. Someone gets a score that beats one on the board, and you have to move everything down.
2. The markers are always dried up.
3. The writing on the board dries up, and it's difficult to erase. Plus, I'm trying to keep the adjacent scores intact.

I've thought about the digital approach a few times, but never got motivated enough to do it. I'd like to try yours. I'm not sure if it will work out, mostly because it will need to be on all the time, and I don't really want to just leave it on. I really like the idea, though.

You mean a Fire 7? If so, that's kinda what I was thinking as well. I got one for my son for $33 on a lightning deal last year. I would just use WiFi if needed and a microUSB for power rather than PoE. 7" might be a bit small, though. Keep it clean, this is Pez's thread.

Can multiple devices share a database? I guess what I'm wondering is if I had it on a screen that was not easily accessible, could I use my phone to make score updates?

Does that imply that the back-end will run on a publicly accessible server? That would make it easier to set up, but it also requires that you have constant internet access. Not a big deal, I'm just curious. I've done just enough web development to know that I don't know what I'm doing with it.

Any updates on progress?

I have a Fire 7 on the way, so I won't have to steal my son's. I may eventually buy into the nice, large touchscreen like you're talking about, but I'm a cheapskate. I need to prove to myself that I can't get by with the $30 tablet first. Now, I'm anxiously awaiting the app.

I had a couple of other thoughts. I'd much rather see this released in it's current form than to have you get stuck in a mode of adding features forever, but I'm going to ask these questions anyway.

1. You have 4 columns shown in portrait mode and you mention landscape mode, but I'm still thinking that 8 games will be too much to fit without scrolling. Would it be possible to have 2 rows of 4 games? Or maybe a 50" screen with 10 rows of 15 games for guys like RotorDave?

2. You mentioned being able to change the column width. How difficult it is to change the height of a score entry box? Once you start chopping the screen into multiple rows, the tall boxes would limit the number of scores that could be seen at once.

Basically, I'm wondering what options are available to make it possible to display more scores at a time without scrolling.

In case you can't tell, I'm very excited about this project. Great work!

I seem to be missing a piece.
20170722_092426 (resized).jpg

I'm planning to have a few neighbors over to play tomorrow, and I'm going to try to get them to break iScored. Actually, I'm curious about how it will work out. A question that I thought of this morning; Are there any options to block certain actions? Say, anyone can add a score to an existing game, but require password entry to delete a score, delete a game, or add a new game.

Hmmm... If a Pi (specifically a Pi3) won't handle it, I'd say a lot a tablets won't either. I don't expect it to be a problem, though. I use a Pi3 to host a web interface that controls my 3D printer, including video from a USB camera attached to it.

Edit: Granted I'm talking server side, but I have also used the browser on the same Pi3 to connect to it.

Using mostly default styles, with only a few edits, here's a sample of what mine looks like.

Fullscreen capture 8262017 111106 AM (resized).jpg

I have started playing around with using images for the game headers. Do you know if it's possible to use transparency? I know there were some concerns about copyright on images, but a database of title images would be awesome.

Edit: Nevermind. I just answered my own question. I used GIMP to erase the background of my AFM image and saved it as a PNG with transparency. I still need to clean up the edges, but...

Fullscreen capture 8272017 73458 AM (resized).jpg

It sure would be nice if we could share the work of image editing, though.

I am not an IP expert by any means, but I'm sure certain people wouldn't allow it without a fight. Maybe we can talk to Spooky to get permission, then the other will follow suit when they see how shitty their titles look compared to the Spooky ones.

Using the images and picking a consistent resolution also works as a way to line up the top edges. I'm using 250x100 pixels in these three. I'm already tired of image editing, though.

Fullscreen capture 8272017 90422 AM (resized).jpg

The Impact font does not appear the same on my Android devices as on Windows. I'm guessing it's not installed and I'm seeing a default substitute. Problem is, I really like the font. Do any Android gurus know if there is a way too add it?

How did you do the image in the MM score box?

So, I debated getting a big touchscreen, but after using it on a Fire 7 tablet, I'm starting to really like the wall space that I've gained by removing a 24" x 24" dry erase board and replacing it with a 7" tablet. I can't display all the scores at once using the tablet, but it's definitely usable. I CAN get all of them on one screen if I'm not in fullscreen. It was mentioned above that the scaling seems to only work out of fullscreen.

Anyway, to make better use of limited space, I started chopping away at dead space using margin-top and margin-bottom in the CSS. Here's an idea at what I've been able to fit on my phone. I'm away from home at the moment, so I'll try it on the tablet tonight.

Screenshot_2017-08-28-09-22-05 (resized).png

I can confirm in IE11 on Windows 10. I also do not get the scroll bar, but I can use left and right arrows. I do get the scroll bar in Chrome on the same PC.

The alignment didn't bother me as bad as it seems to bother you, but I was still able to get them aligned using a couple of tricks.
1. Use images of a consistent size for the header images.
2. Use margin-top and margin-bottom in the CSS for the scores. For example on Iron Man, I have:
a. Player Initials - margin-top: -10px; margin-bottom: -8px;
b. Player Score - margin-top: 15px; margin-bottom: -5px;
c. Score Box - margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;

If you use similar margins on all of your games, you can get them to all align fairly easily. It would be nice if it was more integrated into the design, rather than requiring CSS, but it's still not that bad.

Edit: One drawback I'm now noticing is that it also affects the score entry dialog.

I think I'm very close to being "done" with the tweaking. I tried it on the 7" tablet and took a couple of pictures. Here it is in fullscreen where it doesn't scale.

20170828_185702 (resized).jpg

And here in normal view with the scaling 0.45 in effect.

20170828_200250 (resized).jpg

I'm starting to like being able to toggle between scaled and non-scaled. Any chance we can get a button to toggle scaling while in fullscreen (once the bug is fixed)?

@pezpunk,

Nice update! I still have custom styles since I want my blocks closer together than the default, but all that was required was for me to adjust my margins and the Game Title Height. It doesn't take away any of the ability to customize, but it should make the default styles look a good bit nicer.

Also, I thought I was done, but then I realized I could put an animated GIF in the banner. Now I feel like I need something to spice it up a bit but remain subtle. Something like a ball being plunged every 30 seconds or so. The problem is I don't know how to make animated GIFs, and I'm by no means an artist.

Sure, it would.

Fullscreen capture 8292017 125012 PM (resized).jpg

I did end up using a few of those. The desired width is 250 pixels, though it will scale larger ones down. I manually scaled them to 250x100, adding blank space if needed, so that everything lined up nicely on mine.

I'll leave the maximum for pezpunk to answer, but I will say you shouldn't need multiple screens unless you want all of them shown at the same time. You can scroll through the list if you have more than fit on screen.

I know you guys are probably sick of me posting about it, but here's a quick video of mine. Sorry for the shaky camera work.

I'm looking forward to that. There are a few fonts on mine that could be better choices, but I'm not sure what my choices are. I tried to research installing fonts on a tablet, and it doesn't seem nearly as easy as it is on a laptop.

Yeah, I'm digging the spiral. I'm pretty happy with the whole look as well. Thanks for the compliment, and especially thanks for creating the software.

The only things I still think might need tweaking are a pointy font for AFM initials, a more blocky font for Iron Man (Impact is perfect, but not available on the Fire 7), and maybe a little more detail for RZSSI. The spiral doesn't work too well when the screen scales, since it isn't wide enough and it tiles, resulting in two spirals.

I have the tablet shown above mounted on the wall in the gameroom, but I'm doing most of my configuration on a PC, so the equivalent of a large screen. I'm also testing it on my phone (a Samsung S5) once in a while, which is actually higher res than the Fire 7 tablet. I'm curious about running it on a Pi, but I have too many projects going on as it is. There are 100 PCBs sitting on my dining room table waiting to be programmed, tested, and packaged, but I'm playing around with fonts and animated GIFs.

In case it helps anyone, here is a list of all fonts mentioned in the styles:
squealer
aclonica
Creepster
Wendy One
impact - this one is not installed on the server, so it must be on your system to work
Londrina Solid
Arial Black
dseg14_classicbold_italic
Ghostbusters
NEW ROCKER
IM Fell English
Yatra One
Metallica
Marcellus SC
Federation
OzsWizard
Russo One
Press Start 2P
ringbearermedium

I installed an app called "Keep Screen On Free" on the tablet. So far, it does a good job. The main drawback is that often I try to make changes and they don't work. I end up finding that I've been logged out of the website.

What bugs? I've forgotten already. Oh, yeah, the mobile scaling thing. Who needs mobile scaling now?

From what I understand, if you wanted it to continuously push one game left, you'd have to refresh the page every time because the leftmost game would get bumped to the right. The way it's implemented, it is simply scrolling the screen side to side; no additional load on the server. Maybe it could be an option to scroll one game, then wait, then scroll another game, then wait. Personally, I love how the new feature works now.

250x184 (or shorter) is for the game title images.
For the banner image, you want screen width x 100 high.
For the game backgrounds, I've been using 500 x 1024 (though only 430 wide is actually used). The column is only like 270 or so wide, but the same image is used for the score input screen. The 1024 is long enough that I can rotate to portrait and still have enough length to fall off the bottom of the screen.

Some of this is screen dependent, however, so bigger is better, and people can crop them as necessary.

Edit: ...or you can make them smaller if they tile nicely.

That would be awesome if we could share styles through the system. Just browsing through them would be a lot of fun.

I had been using 500 because I was too lazy to figure out what the actual width was. If it's 430, you may want to use that to save a little on the image size. Also, for ones like your Ms Pac Man, you can use a very small sliver and let it tile. For example, my AMH background:

amh_ghost_smaller_blue_bg (resized).jpg

When used, it looks like this:
Fullscreen capture 8312017 20408 PM (resized).jpg

If someone comes up with a good location to put stuff, I'd be glad to upload what I have created.

Sure, sounds fine to me. PM'd my email address.

Upper left corner. The right and bottom are cropped.

Possible bug: When the horizontal resolution is low, the configuration menu arrow disappears.

With the scrolling, I was considering moving to a portrait orientation, but the menu disappears at 600 px wide.

My images are up there now. Here's to hoping that pezpunk makes it obsolete with sharing embedded in the app!

This one is a bit more busy than my other games, but I just couldn't pass up using that awesome artwork. Unfortunately, it only works for short screens (<768 px).

RZsample (resized).jpg

Yeah, I'm going to need that one as well. Hopefully soon!

Come to the dark side. Pi3 and Fire 7 tablets; none of this 24" touchscreen mumbo jumbo.

Actually, I'm totally jealous.

A large monitor will normally be 1920 pixels, and a column is about 265 pixels wide. Nearly 8 columns.

It's still testing, but from what I'm seeing, it's pretty solid. I wouldn't expect it to be much longer before release.

Yeah, that's why I was joking about it. A Pi3 is about the most bang for your buck piece of electronics I can think of. I have 5 in my house doing various things right now.

You'll always have a list, but honestly, it's very useful now, and the flurry of activity on this thread shows how much peoples' enthusiasm has been dampened. Once you have actual customers, expectations do get a bit higher, but I'd be happy paying for it as-is with the promise of updates.

I know someone can do better than this, but I wanted to get the ball rolling again.
Fullscreen capture 972017 23911 PM (resized).jpg
Fullscreen capture 972017 23923 PM (resized).jpg

Just a quick note and thanks to @pezpunk. He did some work on this, and I can now use my Fire 7 in portrait orientation and still have the menu. Why would I want this? With it turned this way, I can see 6 scores for each game (extra vertical resolution), and with the auto-scrolling, it will display as many games as I have configured (8 in my case), though not all at the same time.

A big screen would be awesome, but I like the option of using a small, cheap tablet. It saves wall space, and is still just as functional, though, without the same bling factor.

Nice. I just noticed there is now a font help panel. Also, mine has stayed logged in for about 3 days now, so whatever you have done seems to have fixed that small inconvenience.

I only see that if I zoom out too far. I'm guessing that because you only have 3 games, it's not wide enough at the default column width, and it automatically increases them. You could test this by adding a couple more dummy games. What's your display device? Can you turn it to portrait orientation?

You could add a couple of dummy games with an empty game name, then add whatever background image you wanted. Here's an example with no background so that it displays black.
Fullscreen capture 9112017 120024 PM (resized).jpg
Fullscreen capture 9112017 115942 AM (resized).jpg

I agree that's the only correct answer.

The 32" is likely 1920x1080, so with only 3 games on it, you would need backgrounds that are 1920 / 3 = 640 px wide to avoid the nasty seam. Either that, or pad it with some dummy columns as mentioned above.

Once you used the tablet flipped to portrait, a couple of issues bit you. The tablet resolution looks like it is 1024x600, so in fullscreen, your 3 columns at 265 px minimum width each add up to 795 px, causing the 3rd one to fall off the edge of the screen. There is still a bug that causes the scaling to not work in fullscreen on mobile devices.

When the table is NOT in fullscreen, the scaling works, so your columns fill the screen nicely. Since it's scaled down, you need more vertical resolution than you'd think. You have 1024, minus the 100 px banner, divided by the zoom being used. Your zoom is at 600/795 in order to make the columns fit. As a result, you would need 924 / (600 / 795) = 1224 px to make it fill the vertical space without tiling. A lot of these images are being made at 500x1024, so they would not be long enough in your case.

Well, kinda. They need to be big enough to cover, but they can be oversized. The biggest gotcha there is that if you have an image is really wide and you try to use it on a 265 px wide column, you'll only see the left part.

In your case, if you want to use existing images, I'd recommend adding dummy columns or turning portrait. If you go portrait, you'll probably find that some images aren't long enough.

You could also stay landscape, only have 3 columns, and make sure that all your images are 640 px or more wide.

Now, that's an awesome offer!

Looks like the browser on the TV is mangling it. Have you tried it on a different device?

Short of the login screen being a bit difficult to manage and there not being much screen real estate for scores, it does work fine on my Android phone (a Samsung S5). It could be worth trying on an iphone. I know, however, there is not currently a trial version, so there's that wrinkle. Don't expect pezpunk to support it when you run into issues, either.

They need to be wider than 256 px. I'm not sure why The Transporter is not cropped, just like all the others, unless it is not actually 256 px wide. You need an absolute minimum of 265 px wide to avoid tiling on the score display screen. You will also need them to be at least 430 px to avoid tiling on the score entry screen.

265, not 256. Plus, if you don't go to 430, you'll have the same problem on the score entry screen.

I've asked pezpunk for a separate image for backgrounds vs score entry. I think that would reduce the confusion, but you still have the wrinkle of different column widths for different setups.

http://iScored.info