OmniTickerhasbeenusedbyleadingfinancialinstitutionstosupporttheiconicfinancialLEDtickers. Thename‘ticker’derivesfromthetickersymbol;itshistoricalrelevancethecapabilitytodisplayreal-time information in a scrolling format using the ticker symbol as the identifier for a stock or index. ScrollingmessageboardsareeverywheretodayandtheOmniTickersoftwarehasevolvedtomeet thedifferingrequirementsforthedisplayofreal-timeinformation.Itsoverridingdesignprinciple:easy to setup, use and change with support for multiple types of information in a user’s chosen sequence.WithinOmniTicker,therearetwodesigntabs,TickerProperties;thisdefinesthecharacteristicsof theticker,type,sizeandscrolldirectionandItemstoDisplaywhereauserdefinesdatatypes, formatsandcontenttobedisplayed. Athirdtabprovidesaviewofwhatisinthebufferforeachactive virtual ticker.WithinTickerProperties,thestandardtickertypeisaVideoTicker.Foranewuserthistypeshould be selected and it defaults to full colour with the LED Colours (checked).Fromhere,auserdefinestheheightandwidthofaVirtualTickerwhichcanbelaterpublishedtoa physicaltargettickerordisplay. Ausershouldensuretheheightandwidthoftheofthevirtualticker is set in accordance with size and position required on the target physical display.Trans-Lux and Texcellent types are covered later in this document.
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Options:thedefaultishorizontal scrollingwherethetickermoves from right to left. Where,forexample,alanguage isnaturallyreadfromrighttoleft, (e.g.Arabic),thetickerwould scrolllefttoright,usingthe reverse scroll direction option.Forverticallyscrollingtickers,bottomtotopandtoptobottom.Rotate90(leftandright)providesthis function. Asecondaryoptionallowscharacterstoberotatedleftorrighttomakereadinginformation easier.
Data Types and ServicesFour data item types can be displayed: Static Text, DDEExcel itemsRMPExternal data itemsBitmapJPEG/PNG image itemsDDE and RMP items have additional settings of Service, Topic and Item.Service includes:Local Clock, RSS (OmniRSS data feeds), Twitter (when enabled in OmniRSS). Topic: lists the group of data items associated with the chosen Service and Item lists every data item available within the Topic.Item: each Item can have up to 4 Parts, each part having its own data type. Static text can be entered as a precursor to any Part (data item). Topic is the location/name of the attaching spreadsheet and Item, the cell location. Static Data types only allow for text input only. A simple bulk load facility is also available from the File tab menu using text file input. Each line in a bulk upload text file becomes a data item in the ticker and can be amended as required. Excel Data types require the spreadsheet to be open on the host desktop. Copy and Paste Link is the standard way to add a cell from Excel; this will populate the Service, Topic and Item in the dialogue box. Alternatively, these values can be entered manually.RMP Data types can access four Services, Local Clock, RSS (OmniRSS data feeds) and Twitter. Each data item is selected from the dropdown menu, Service, Topic and Item. Bitmap/ JPEG/ PNG images are loaded from the Graphics button and should be the same size in pixels as the height as the ticker.
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Managing Parts
Each Part has one data item, the purpose of Parts 2, 3, and 4 is to provide the capability to group related data items together, although there are logical constraints on what data is grouped.Intheexamplehere,Part1isstatictext‘FTSE 100’,Part2istheLastTradepriceandPart3is the Change from the previous value. LastTradeprice.Part2andPart3havebeen groupedtogetherandformattedsuchthatPart3 will appear under Part 2.The colour of each data item and its background are user-defined from the colour palette.
Standard Formatting
Eachitempartcanbeindividuallyformatted; spacesbeforetheitempart,displayupto,font andsizeverticaloffsetandfornumericalvalues, positive, negative, up and down arrows. Eachitempartcanbesetindividuallyto‘Bold’or toappearin‘Uppercase’;theseattributesapply to numeric or text based item parts.‘Displayupto’isusedtodiscardsuperfluouscharactersattheendofafield.Forexample,if retrievingafieldfromReutersusingDDE,thestocksymbol ANL.L,butcouldbedisplayedas ANLby placingadotinthe‘Displayupto’dialoguebox.Thesamecanbeusedtoremovesurplus‘http’links in Twitter which cannot be displayed.Conditional FormattingConditionalcolourformattingcanbebasedonwhether thedataitemisapositiveornegativenumber,whetherit fallswithinauserdefinedrangeorwhetheritishigheror lowerthanitspreviousvalue;coloursareuserdefined. Conditionalcolourscanbeappliedtoboththedataitem and its background. Inaddition,eachitempartcanbeConditionaldisplayed dependent on user defined logic.
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Managing Content
Adding and removing tickers is straight forward; remove does not delete the source file, but before removing a ticker it should first be saved to ensure it can be retrieved if required at a later date (use the File tab, Save or Save As).‘Add new ticker’ opens a new editing dialogue box. From there a user can add a data line of their choice. Starting with ‘New Item’, select ‘Data type’, add the Parts required and ‘Apply to selected’.Where data lines have a similar structure, an existing data line can be selected, amended and ‘Applied as a new item’. ‘Apply to all’ will only apply at part level; where a user edits a data line part (e.g. makes a formatting change), this can be applied to all parts at the same level (e.g. all Part 2’s).Data lines can be moved up and down in sequence, sorted and deleted as required. Once a virtual ticker has been created it should be saved, usually to the default folder:Documents/OmniApps/OmniTicker.Scheduled Files, Playlist and Static Items are covered later in this document.
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OmniTicker Tools & Reports
OmniTicker has a powerful RSS feed manager, OmniRSS. OmniRSS User Guide provides full details on its use and connectivity.OmniRSS is used to extract real-time data from RSS Feeds and Yahoo Finance, whereas Excel is the primary interface to financial data feeds such as Reuters and Bloomberg. Excel is also used to provide a simple interface to a user’s internal systems to source internal real-time numerical data.
Connection Settings
From the Tools tab a user can view the connection settings to OmniRSS and the Message Log. The Feed handler auto-connects to OmniRSS with a default port 5004. The message log records the applications actions and provides a user with any errors in attaching to the associated programs and services.
OmniTicker and Excel
For OmniTicker to work with Excel the application must be open on the desktop and started prior to starting OmniTicker.DDE Links show the number of active links and any that are broken. A user can define how broken/bad links are shown on the virtual ticker.
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Publishing a Ticker
From the Ticker Properties tab, the Publish function opens the above dialogue box. From here a user will see all the virtual tickers open and available. For ease of reference, the Display Name is user defined, whereas the Virtual Display is selected from the dropdown menu, which lists displays that are open and available. These include standard tickers, playlists and schedules with playlists and schedules identified by an adjacent symbol.Speed:The speed at which the ticker scrolls; default is 1 (slowest) with 5 (fastest).Display No:This is the display number identified from Windows Extended Desktop. For example a second monitor would be 2 and a third and forth, 3 and 4.X & Y:For a standard video ticker these are usually be set to (0,0). Where the ticker is required to appear on a display larger than the ticker’s size in pixels, the X and Ycoordinates would be specified by the user and set such the tickerappears in the correct position on the the target display.Lock XY:Ensures each time OmniTicker restarts the virtual ticker will appear in the correctplace on the target display.Visible:A user can opt to the make a particular virtual display not visible on the target display.This could be a user is editing the virtual display or has chosen to publish a differentvirtual ticker to that physical ticker or display.
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Schedules & Playlists
Schedules and Playlists provide the capability to change the content that appears by grouping tickers together that are the same height and width in pixels.Schedules and Playlists can be composed from any of the available user files that are placed into the directory:Documents/Omni Apps/OmniTickerSchedules are setup by selecting the tickers, the date upon which they are to start, time and frequency. A schedule can also include a PlaylistPlaylists are sequential or timed, can be active (enabled) or non-active. Timed playlists are intended to replay with their refreshed data (where appropriate) with each playlist set to go through a number of loops (replays) before returning to the beginning of the list.Sequential playlists are set to play for different time intervals.Scheduled files have a file extension ‘sfl’ whereas Playlists have a file extension ‘oply’.