Using Auto-Start; Playing A Project From A Remote Location - Videonics PowerScript PS4000S Instruction Manual

Chapter 7

Using Auto-Start

With auto-start you can program PowerScript to play a specific project whenever the unit
powers on. This feature is especially useful in remote applications to allow a specific
project to resume play following a power failure.
To use auto-start:
When PowerScript powers on, it looks for a project with the name STARTUP and, if
found, immediately plays that project. Make sure the PC Card containing the auto-start
project is inserted in a PowerScript PC Card slot.

Playing a Project from a Remote Location

If you are working at a remote location, you can instruct PowerScript to play a project by
transferring a file to one of PowerScript's PC Cards. The project file must already reside on
the target PC Card. By transferring a special play file to the PC Card, PowerScript knows
which project you want to play.
To use this feature you must have an existing connection between your remote location
and PowerScript. You then use a file transfer program (such as Fetch) to send the file from
a computer to PowerScript. See Chapter 8, PowerScript Computer Connections, for more
information on this topic.
To play a project from a remote location:
To create a PLA-type file, use any text editor or word processing application on your com-
Creating a PLA File
puter. The PLA file does not need to contain any information—you can include informa-
tion, but doing so unnecessarily consumes space on the PC Card. When saving the file,
give it the same name as the project you want to play (such as CARTOONS in the preced-
ing example) and, very important, give it the PLA file type extension, such as CAR-
TOONS.PLA.
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1
Create the project that you want to play automatically.
2 Save the project file on a PC Card and name it STARTUP.
Note
If a project that you attempt to start crashes, PowerScript automatically create a
project named CRASHED.PRJ on the same PC Card as the problem project. This
allows PowerScript to restart normally because it does not attempt to run the dam-
aged project. If this occurs, try to open the original, damaged project to see if you
can delete the page or pages that caused the crash. If you aren't able to access the
original project, you might be able to recover the pages from the CRASHED.PRJ
project.
1 Create the project or projects you want to play, store them on a PC Card, and insert the
PC Card in one of the PowerScript PC Card slots.
2 From your remote location, create a PLA file with the same name as the project you
want to play.
For example, assume the project file you want to play is named CARTOONS. You would
need to create a file named CARTOONS.PLA to send from your remote location. See
"Creating a PLA File" below.
3 Transfer the CARTOONS.PLA file to either PowerScript PC Card, in any directory.
Advanced PowerScript Functions