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  • 1.  Datalinq to Excel Row and Column

    Posted 13 days ago
      |   view attached

    Hey everyone, I'm trying something a little complicated here but not having much success -- Linking "current condition" data from the National Weather Service to icons. There's a lot of possible conditions, but not a lot of icons... My process is this:

    1. Visual Logic gets the current time, dumps it into a text object
    2. A script on OnPrepare compares the current time to sunrise / sunset data to determine if it's day or night, then dumps that result into a text object
    3. Text objects (called "CurrentConditions#" in the project) for each city read the current conditions provided by the NWS 
    4. Text objects (called "ImageTranslator#" in the project) for each city are assigned to an Excel document that has rows for conditions and columns for day / night; this result is used in a Dynamic Material to call the correct icon for the 1) condition, and 2) time of day 

    I've learned a lot from this community and I've tried to follow the thread here about referencing an Excel row and column using a Table macro, but this method works with my Datalinq about 50 percent of the time. Sometimes the icons load the right condition but wrong daypart, sometimes they load the wrong condition but correct daypart, sometimes some icons are day and some are night. I have a feeling I'm missing something small to make the data consistent 100 percent of the time... Any help would be appreciated! Project attached, and Excel doc & Datalinq Server parameters are in the project folder structure. Thank you all so much!!



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    Ryan Dunn
    Senior Production Manager
    KVVU FOX5
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    Attachment(s)

    xpp
    Weather Project.xpp   74.13 MB 1 version


  • 2.  RE: Datalinq to Excel Row and Column

    Posted 13 days ago

    Hey Ryan, I believe you are facing an order of operation issue. 

    Visual logic doesn't run until after OnOnline so it would be better if you got current time via a script in OnPrepare. 

    1. OnPrepare
    2. Collect Datalinqs / Load Video Clips / Load Textures etc..
    3. OnBeforeOnline
    4. Evaluate transition logic (which may include running OnTransLogicScripts)
    5. OnOnline
    6. Visual Logic Runs


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    Simon Redmile
    Senior Graphic Programmer & Designer
    Ross Video
    Bristol United Kingdom
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  • 3.  RE: Datalinq to Excel Row and Column

    Posted 7 days ago

    Thanks, Simon, that helped a ton! I was able to set the time on OnPrepare and that took care of my daypart issue. I was also running into an issue with the icons still not assigning using the SQL query, but realized I could do the Datalinq query directly on the material without having to use a dummy text object. Now everything is working flawlessly. I appreciate the help, and hopefully this helps other people in the forums!



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    Ryan Dunn
    Senior Production Manager
    KVVU FOX5
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  • 4.  RE: Datalinq to Excel Row and Column

    Posted 6 days ago

    If you are using text macros for datalinqs and materials you need to be sure to check

    on the text object that is connected to data and being used as a text macro 



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    Simon Redmile
    Senior Graphic Programmer & Designer
    Ross Video
    Bristol United Kingdom
    ------------------------------