slides:

This is a config file reference. Click for instructions.

This page is reference material which explains every setting and option for this section of an MPF yaml config file. See the instructions for config files for formatting and other details. See our guide to config file examples for more examples of real configs in action.

Valid in
machine config files	YES
mode config files	YES

The slides: section of your config is where you pre-define "named" slides that you can then use later in shows and the slide_player section of a config file. See the How to Show a Slide on a Display guide for details on this. You can test slides and widgets interactively using Interactive MC (iMC).

Slide names are universal throughout MPF, so if you create two slides with the same name---even in different modes---one of them will overwrite the other and things will be confusing, so don't do that.

See the How to create slides documentation for full details on how to create slides. (You should definitely "learn" about slides there. The settings here are mostly used for reference later.)

There are several different ways you can enter slides. In all cases, you'll have a slides: section of your config, and then under that, you'll have sub-entries which are slide names. But what is entered under each slide name varies.

Option 1: Slide with a widget

If you want to define a slide that only has a single widget, you can just add the widget's properties under the slide name. In the example below, we're defining two slides, one called my_slide_1 and the other called my_slide_2, and they each only have a single widget.

slides:
  my_slide_1:
    type: text
    text: THIS IS MY SLIDE
  my_slide_2:
    type: text
    text: THIS IS ANOTHER SLIDE
    color: lime
    font_size: 25

Option 2: List of widgets

Of course many slides you'll define will have more than one widget. To add multiple widgets to a slide, just enter them like you entered a single widget, but use a dash (and a space) to dictate where a new widget starts, like this:

slides:
  my_slide_1:
    - type: text
      text: THIS IS MY SLIDE
    - type: image
      image: johnny_5
  my_slide_2:
    - type: text
      text: THIS IS ANOTHER SLIDE
    - type: text
      y: 20%
      text: IT HAS MORE THAN 1 WIDGET
    - type: ellipse
      color: red
      width: 200
      height: 100

Option 3: Widgets under "widgets:" section

In addition to widgets, slides have other options (as described below), and sometimes you might want to define a slide that has widgets and slide settings. To do that, you need to move your widgets definition into a sub-section called "widgets:", and then you can add the other slide settings under the slide along with the widgets.

Here's an example. Note that the slide with multiple widgets is using the dash in the widgets: section to separate the individual widgets.

slides:
  my_slide_1:
    background_color: red
    widgets:
      type: text
      text: THIS IS MY SLIDE
  my_slide_2:
    widgets:
      - type: text
        text: THIS IS ANOTHER SLIDE
      - type: text
        y: 20%
        text: IT HAS MORE THAN 1 WIDGET
      - type: ellipse
        color: red
        width: 200
        height: 100
    expire: 2s
    transition:
      type: move_in
      direction: right

You can mix-and-match the three options for entering widgets as needed within the same slides: section of your config.

Creating a blank slide

If you want to create a blank slide (perhaps an empty canvas that you'll populate via the widget player later?), then you need to tell the slides: section that you have an empty list. In YAML, that's done with a [ and ] next to each other (which is confusing because it looks like a rectangle, but it's not, like this: [].

You can use this format to create a blank slide with no options:

slides:
  my_blank_slide: []

Or you can use it to create a blank slide with options, but no widgets, like this:

slides:
  my_blank_slide:
    background_color: red
    widgets: []

Settings

The following sections provide additional options for your slide which you can use if you move the widgets into their own widgets: section. If you just include the widgets as top-level entries (like Options 1 and 2 above), then the default values for each of these settings below will be used.

background_color:

Single value, type: color (color name, hex, or list of values 0-255). Default: 000000ff

The background color of the slide. Details on how to enter color values are here.

debug:

Single value, type: boolean (true/false). Default: false

Set to true/yes if you want to add addition debug information about this slide to the log. (Note this requires a verbose log to see.)

expire:

Single value, type: time string (secs) (Instructions for entering time strings). Defaults to empty.

Sets an expiration time which will automatically remove this slide. If it's showing when it's removed, the next-highest priority active slide will be shown in its place.

Note that you can also configure expiration when the slide is shown (in either a show or via the slide_player), so you don't need to define an expire setting as part of the slide definition unless you want that expire time to be used every time the slide is shown.

If you specify an expire time in both places, the expire time in the slide_player or show will take precedence.

opacity:

Single value, type: number (will be converted to floating point). Default: 1.0

Sets the overall opacity of the slide. A value of 1.0 is fully opaque. A value of .5 means the slide is 50% transparent, and a value of 0 means the slide will be invisible and you'll probably be confused about why it's not showing up.

transition_out:

Unknown type. See description below.

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Note that you can also configure a transition when the slide is shown (in either a show or via the slide_player), so you don't need to define a transition as part of the slide definition unless you want that transition to be used every time the slide is shown.

If you specify a transition in both places, the transition in the slide_player or show will take precedence.

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