Xibo v4.1 is coming soon!

Last September we launched the most intuitive and powerful version of Xibo to date, Xibo v4. Since then, our team have been working through many of the valuable pieces of feedback provided by our community and we’re excited to share a glimpse into the changes that will be coming in the next few months with the release of Xibo v4.1.

Interactive Signage

Xibo has extended its interactive signage feature with two exciting new capabilities. Xibo displays can now integrate directly with data sources local to the player, pulling data and controlling scheduled content with ease. Open a web socket to that light sensor, or send a schedule update into the local player API, the opportunities to create engaging experiences are endless.

Xibo 4.1 extends its DataSet functionality with Data Connectors, used to integrate with local data sources in real time.

Xibo also extends its scheduling capability with “Schedule Criteria” so that you can feed local data into the display to determine which schedules are activated. Only want to show your umbrella advert when it's raining? If the OpenWeather connector is enabled, we provide a local weather feed to use.

Schedule criteria can also be fed with custom criteria or extended via integration. If you have a provider you’d like integrated, let us know!

Layout Editing and Previewing Improvements

Xibo 4.1 builds on the changes made in 4.0 so that the Layout Editing experience is even simpler but more powerful than ever before.

• Text elements
  We have added a “fit to selection” option on text elements which will automatically resize text to fit its containing box.
  It is also possible to double click on a text element and edit it directly on the canvas.

• Drag to select
  We have added a drag to selection option, common to other design tools, which allows you to drag a rectangle onto the editor and select multiple items.

• Streamlined Toolbox
  If you are a user who adds a lot of media to your layout/playlists, then moving to a thumbnail only toolbar made your workflow more complicated.In v4.1 we have introduced an expandable toolbox with 4 settings. The 4th setting switches to a tabular view of the library with paging/sorting/filtering/etc.

• More content choices
  Xibo v4.1 makes it easier to get started with great content, making it clearly visible in its own dedicated toolbox panels. We have also added more ready made Stencils to use with Elements!

• Better previewing!
  In v4.1 we have improved how Layouts and Campaigns are previewed in the CMS. The preview now starts straight away, no buffering, and also supports playlist transitions.

We’ve listened carefully to your feedback on v4.0 and we understand! There are many Xibo users who enjoyed and relied on the HTML/CSS and JavaScript capabilities, without wanting to get into creating development environments, etc.

Xibo 4.1 brings back the ability to use HTML/CSS and JavaScript with your widgets! We’ve carefully designed a user interface to enable the creation of a full static template directly from a new Developer menu in the CMS. This is available for any Data Widget and we’re super excited to get your feedback. The existing powerful tools available in v4.0 are all still there and available to use.

Enterprise Display Management

At Xibo we’re very excited to be running on some truly large networks! These enterprise installations bring some exciting challenges that the team have been working on for Xibo 4.1.

Included in 4.1 are a suite of changes intended to make it easier to operate at scale; from improved logging capabilities, to intelligent display reporting, we have made great leaps in operating at scale.

Not directly related to Xibo 4.1; the team have also been working on adding remote device management (RDM) capabilities for various OEMs! More on that soon.

Security

Xibo 4.1 continues to enhance the security of the platform and is excited to introduce a Strict Content Security Policy as part of our continued drive for best practice.