Been around Yodeck’s site lately? Notice anything different?
That’s right, we did a major revamp of our public web presence, not just to make it look more modern, but also to help you find product and support information faster and more easily.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg Yodeck news-wise — and given the temperatures we get in these parts in August, we could really use the rest of the iceberg too.
You asked, we delivered!
Alongside the webpage changes, our industrious little team, sweated all summer to deliver you a whole lot of awesome for this Autumn’s Yodeck update.
Covering just about all the most frequently requested features from past releases, Yodeck now comes with support for Live Streaming, Multiple Users per Account, Pixel-Perfect Layout Editing, Device Tags, Device Map — and a whole bunch of other stuff besides!
And the best part is that you don’t even need to install anything!
In fact, you’ve might seen a few of those features already, as we’ve been rolling them out silently over the last few months.
So, let’s have a more detailed look at what’s new, shall we?
Live Video Streaming
You now can use any Live Video service, such as YouTube Live, Ustream or any other custom HLS/RTMP/RTSP video streaming source, and have the stream shown on your Yodeck screen.
This feature is still experimental as we iron out a few remaining glitches, but based on our customer feedback says it has worked pretty damn well so far.
Multiple Users per Account
On top of the primary user that’s the default for each Yodeck Account, you now get to define have additional users, and even give them different permissions per section.
This way you can have, for example, a Content-Manager-like user (or users) that can only upload, manage and publish content, and Accounting or Marketing oriented users, that get to access your subscribers’ details.
Pixel-Perfect Layout Editing
If you’ve used Yodeck’s Show editor in the past to create custom layouts, you’ll probably know first hand that content cannot always be aligned to the editor’s grid.
Now you have the option to disable the grid and specify the exact dimensions and placement of your content — right down to the pixel.
Device Tags
Yodeck can support thousands of Monitors from a single account. How do you differentiate between them, though, to quickly find the specific ones you want to manage, if you have more than a dozen?
With Tags, that’s how. This new feature allows you to add tags to your monitor entries, and use them (in any combination) to search for and mass manage your monitors faster than ever.
Device Map
Jealous of all those fancy satellite tracking screens that are often featured in spy movies?
Well, with the Device Map feature you get to experience them for yourself, as it adds a map on your Dashboard showing all of your Devices.
We are also planning to supplement this with a “Locations” feature, allowing you to group nearby Devices belonging to the same facility or location, for easier mass management.
… and various smaller features and workflow improvements
We also made several minor changes to improve Yodeck workflows. Here’s a list with the most important of these:
- Deactivate Private Browsing. By default, Web Pages were shown in “incognito” mode. You can now deactivate this behavior. (Note that currently all saved session data are removed on device reboot, but we’re working on adding an option to allow for persistent session data.)
- Deactivate Diagnostics & the “Turning Off” message. Some users do not like seeing the diagnostics information screen or the message currently shown before a monitor is turned off. You can have the option to deactivate these messages.
- Web Page ID/UUID Parameters. If you need to change the content provided by a Web Page, we now allow you to use special parameters that will get replaced by the specific monitor’s ID or UUID every time a webpage is loaded.
- Duplicate Playlists/Shows/Schedules. You can now “clone” Playlists, Shows, and Schedules, saving time and effort when you need to create derivative playlists based on an existing one.
- Move Media between Folders. If you use Yodeck’s Folder View, you can now move Media (Videos and Images) between any selected folder.
- Password Policy. You can now set the policy for User passwords, including password strength and password expiration.
Conclusion
In this post, we marveled at the digital wonder that Yodeck’s new website is, and gave a list of all kinds of exciting new features and capabilities added in the last couple of months, and finally fully rolled out for you to enjoy.