Transforming the look of your booth - changing screen backgrounds

Breeze Booth for iPad

Introduction

All Breeze Booth for iPad’s screens can be replaced by your own artwork, changing the look and position of buttons, overlays and background images to create unique interfaces which match your house style and client requirements.

This tutorial shows how to change screen backgrounds, using Chameleon theme as a start point.

Booth includes the Chameleon theme as standard. Use this straight from the box or as a foundation for your own designs.

This tutorial explains how to

• change all screen backgrounds in an event by swapping out the default background for the event
• replace individual screen backgrounds
• replace the default background for a theme, and use your custom theme to generate multiple events

For one off events work at event level. If you want templates for different types of event or a consistent house style,  create distinct themes and use these to generate individual events.

All background images must  be JPEGs, and should be the same size in pixels as your iPad/iPhone screen. If your images are a different size they may be cropped or stretched by the program.

New events

Booth’s Event Creator lets you specify the background screen color of each event, or use custom artwork as the background.

Start the Event Editor and select Create Event..

Choose a background color for the event

For plain backgrounds of any color uncheck Use default background image at Step 2 of the Event Creator, and select a background color. The event you build will have a full set of screens of this color.

Choose a background image for the event

For a graphic background import your default JPEG background when creating the event.

 

How to change the default background image in existing events

You can change the default background for existing events using the Event Editor’s touchscreen editor:

When you have opened the touchscreen editor, select  default_background.jpg, and right click anywhere on the image to bring up an action to change this image

Click on Replace default background screen.. and select the new image you want to use

You can see the effect of the new background on each screen without leaving the editor. The four images below show the Editor’s view of two screens, and the same screens in operation.

Replacing the backgrounds to individual screens

To replace the background to a single screen:

1. Open your Screen folder from the Touch screen editor
2. Copy the new image into this folder
3. Give the new image the correct name for the screen you are adding/changing. Check screen names here
4. Check the result in the touch screen editor
5. Update the current list* of screens used by the event

In this worked example I have returned to the ‘yellow banana’ default background.

Open the screen folder

Go Bananas prints for this event have the same background color as my default screen background, so I want to change the print confirmation screen to contrast with the print. (Learn how to edit print layouts.) First I copied a new background image (with a contrasting color) into the Screen folder. Then I renamed this image confirm_printing.jpg

I can check the result straight away in the Touch Screen Editor:

Working with PhotoShop and the Event Editor at the same time

The touchscreen editor is a great tool for checking the effect of changes you make to any screen background or overlay. You can have both your image editor and the Event Editor open at the same time. Create and adjust background or overlay images in PhotoShop (or your preferred image editor), save the changes and the Event Editor will show the effect of your change.

Recording changes to the content of the screen folder in the event manifest

Make sure all screen changes are saved before leaving the Event Editor.

Behind the scenes the Event Editor keeps a manifest listing the screen backgrounds, overlays and other assets for each event. The manifest is used to ensure that you can update iPads quickly on the road or at events with a poor Internet connection.

If you click OK at each step from leaving the Touch screen editor to the Event Editor’s list of events, the manifest is updated for you automatically.

If this window pops up choose Yes to keep the manifest up to date and make sure your changes will be downloaded to your devices.

Note to advanced users: You can also edit your screens, buttons and animations by changing the content of the Screens folder – without opening the Event Editor. If you do this you must open the event in the Event Editor when you finish making these changes. Make a small change to the event, save it and return to the event list choosing OK at each step. This will force the program to update the manifest for you. If you change the screen folder content and forget to update the manifest, your event will not update successfully.

Create a set of themes with different backgrounds

Breeze Booth for iPad themes are usually stored in the documents folder C:\Users\sue\Documents\Breeze Booth for iPad\Themes

You can replace the default background in Chameleon with your own design, or copy the whole Chamelon folder and build a set of themes.

Here I have copied the original theme, and called the new theme St Patricks Day. The original screen background image has been replaced by a four leaf clover design.

Repeat this to build a set of themes.  When creating new events you will be able to choose any of your themes

Edit the events created using your new themes in the same way as before.

Summary

This tutorial explained how to change Booth’s default background screens at theme or individual event level. You can customise your screens further by changing the overlays, design and position of buttons.

Learn more…

• Customising and animating screens
• Using the Touchscreen Editor
• Working with Themes

 

© Breeze Systems 2021