Introduction

TDM5 offers the ability to create your own designs, this can be done using elements. Each element has its own properties which can be configured. With these elements you have the ability to create content based on your needs.

This article will describe how a Date/Time element can be added. Additional articles regarding elements can be found in our knowledge base.

Requirements

If you want to add a Date/Time element to your page you need to meet the following requirements:

Have access to: Designer > Pages and be able to create or edit a page.

How To add a Date/Time element

Login to your TDM5 environment.
Select “Designer”.
Select the menu option called “Pages”
Open an existing page by selecting ‘Edit’ or create a new page using the ‘Add new page’ button Edit existing page:

Add new page:
You will be navigated to the content editor, from here you can design your page.
Select the Date Time’ element, this can be done by selecting it in the menu on the left side of the screen.
You can now draw a frame by clicking in the template editor, once this has been done you can decide the size of the element. Click again once you are happy with the size of the element.
On the right side of the page you can configure the properties of the element. To change the name double click the element in the ‘Elements’ section.
In the ‘Element layout’ section you can adjust the position of the element and set rotation in case needed.

The size can also be changed by selecting the border of the element.

Rotation can be set with the dot located at the top of the element.
In the ‘Colors & effects’ section you have the ability to set ‘Opacity’ to make the text transparent. Next to this you have the ability to configure a color for the text and the background.
In the ‘Text’ section you can adjust the format you want to use. The default is HH:mm (Hours and minutes) and by changing this format you can switch to dates as well.

Keep in mind that all date and time properties will be taken from the player device so make sure that the date and time is set correctly on the player hardware.

You can also connect this element to an external data source. These often contain full date and time stamps in ISO format. Using the format in TDM5 you can adjust this to something more readable.
Click on the dropdown for data source selection.
Select an available data source. If you need to create one first you can find addition information in our knowledgebase article ‘how to create a date source’
Select the value you want to display from the data source. In this example we use the ‘train departure time from the NS data source’

(optional) change the format to display the time and or date in the format of your choice.

Once you have finished this step you have successfully added a Date/Time element. It is possible to continue with your design and add additional elements if needed.