Teleprompter

Teleprompter displays scripts formatted as HTML, Markdown, or plain text, scrolling the script consistently. A second web browser can be attached to a "control" view for that script, able to control or stop the scroll speed and jump back to the top of the script. Each scrolling view can be adjusted to conform to different equipment needs.

Installation

1. Install Node.
2. Open a shell. On Windows, this will be the Command Prompt. On Mac OS X, this should be Terminal.
3. In a shell, type npm install -g teleprompter. If you get an EACCESS error at the end, you may have to run sudo npm install -g teleprompter instead.

Basic usage

1. Open a shell. (If it's still open from installing, that's fine.)
2. Use the cd command to change the current working directory to where your scripts live. For example, if your scripts are located at /Users/schoon/Scripts, you'd type cd /Users/schoon/Scripts.
3. In that same shell, run teleprompter.
4. You should see a basic greeting, which includes instructions for connecting devices to your newly-running server. Follow the instructions!
5. Have fun!

Basic physical setup

A setup that has worked well in studios so far has included the following:

• A MacBook or iMac running teleprompter.
• An iPad or other tablet used as the teleprompter display (the one physically co-located with the camera).
• A second tablet used as a monitor for the Teleprompter operator.
• A smartphone connected to that script's Control view, also for the Teleprompter operator.

Detailed usage

Teleprompter expects to be run against a directory of text files. If unspecified, the current working directory is used instead.

Usage: teleprompter [OPTIONS] <scripts>

Options:
  <scripts>       A directory of scripts to load. [Default: .]
  --help, -h      Print usage information, then exit.
  --port, -p      Specify the port to listen on. [Default: 8080]

Teleprompter will run a web server at the configured port, so ensure the port is available to use. A reasonable default, 8080, has been provided, and shouldn't collide with other applications. (If it does collide, you probably know well enough to change it.)

Browser Support

For best results, use the newest browser supported by your platform. For iOS and Android, this will probably be Safari and Android, respectively. For older phones and tablets, however, a more up-to-date browser may be available through the App Store and Play Store. When filing issues, please let us know the browser you ran into trouble with, and we'll see what we can do!

Routes

Once Teleprompter is running successfully, a web browser can be pointed at any of the routes listed below, replacing {script} with the name of the script's file, excluding the extension. For example, if you want to load the file glow-cloud.md or dog-park.html, you would use glow-cloud or dog-park in the URL, respectively.

Name	URL	Description
Dashboard	/	Displays all available scripts and metadata for Teleprompter itself.
Script	/{script}	Displays the named script, rendering any Markdown to HTML.
Control	/{script}/control	Controls all Script displays for the named script.

Developing for Teleprompter

Two additional routes exist for internal synchronization of Control and Script displays. Any event posted to the Publish route is sent to all clients attached to the Subscribe socket, where {namespace} is any string, generally the name of the script being displayed.

Name	URL	Description
Subscribe (EventSource)	GET /{namespace}/events	An EventSource stream of updates.
Publish	POST /{namespace}/events	Pushes a new event to all subscribers.

These events arrive in the form of JSON with a type field (in addition to the text/event-stream-provided event field) and additional metadata.

The table below lists the available events and their desired effects.

Name	Description
content	The content itself has been updated, and the Script client should reload.
position	The scroll position should be reset to y, defaulting to 0 (top).
speed	The scroll speed should be updated to speed, defaulting to 0 (stop).