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What can you put in shows?

In the Show configuration format page, we showed how time values work in shows and included some simple examples using lights. However in MPF, you can put almost anything in shows, including:

  • Lights
  • Coil & drivers
  • Sounds
  • Slides (for the display)
  • Shows (one show can spawn other shows and/or act like a playlist)
  • Events
  • Random events (randomly post an event from a list of events)
  • Flashers
  • GI (general illumination)
  • BCP commands & triggers
  • Widgets (to be added or removed from slides)

The full gamut of options for each of these things is available to you in a show step.

For example, you can configure lights to change color, set their fade, turn off, etc. You can show slides on your display or DMD, or remove existing slides. You can post events that trigger other shows or other things to happen. You can start and stop sounds and music. The list goes on and on...

Technically-speaking, the list above is actually a list of things that MPF calls config players.

Config players in MPF have nothing to with the actual human players of your machine, rather, they are things that "play" configurations.

Config players are used in the *_player: section of your config files and as steps in shows. For example, the light player is used to "play" a config to lights, and it's available to you outside of shows in the light_player: section of your config file as well as in the lights: section of a show.

That naming convention is the same for all the config players. You play sounds via the sound_player: section of a config file or the sounds: section of a show. Slides are played via the slide_player: section of a config file or the slides: section of a show, etc.

All of the individual config players are documented in the config players section of the documentation. You can read details about each config player there, as well as specific instructions for how to include that kind of player in a show.

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