Rangecast FAQ
[FAQ-1147] How to change the display sequence of channels in a World


Page Type: REFERENCE


OVERVIEW

By default, channels are arranged in alphabetic sequence. This sequence may be modified by associating a "rank" with channels, then the channels are arranged in rank order.


BACKGROUND

It is important to understand how rank sort keys are applied, and the scope of effect.

Channels are sorted by rank sort key, which is a sequence of one or more characters associated with a channel.




The sort is alphabetic, so (for example) 10 comes before 2, and A31 comes before U3. When creating a channel sequence using this feature, it is essential that the user plan the use of keys to achieve the desired effect. It is recommended that the initial letter be used to group channels by importance (for exampe, lifting important channels to the top by use of the initial letter A) and a second letter or single-digit number be used to sequence channels within the "A" block, and so on. When text is used in this process (e.g. C-BEVERLY) the alphabetic sort ensures that the channels will be sequenced as expected within the "C" block.

Further, it is important to know that the sort keys apply to the entire world, not only a single view. It is common for the same set of channels to appear on several views (for example, five channels for the town of Beverly may appear on a Beverly view, and on views for adjacent towns, and a wide-area county view). So it is not necessary to rank sequence these channels on each view where they appear, instead the rank is applied at the world level. Therefore, when choosing rank keys, be aware that the rank keys must fit smoothly into each view where the channels will appear. For this reason, if you have multiple views, do not assign rank sort keys with only one view in mind. A sensible alternative is to make two-part sort keys, for example "BEVERLY-5" where the first part sorts cities into the correct order, and the second part sequences channels within the town.


METHOD

1) Launch the Rangecast HTML5 player, and access the World you want to edit (or that you want to use as a template for a new World)

Note: on the Options page, the "Control of Channels" selection must not be "Toggle Only" because it is impossible to mark channels in that mode. The "Quick Bar" selection is recommended as an alternative.

2) (Optional) Press 'pause' to prevent playback. This prevents the player from highlighting channels as they are played, providing a more stable visual display for selecting channels that you want to sequence.

3) Go to either the Editor (off Options).

4) For each channel you want to arrange in a sequence, locate the row with channel, and click either the frequency column (preferred), or alternatively the text tag in the third (most specific) level of the system/group/channel hierarchy, to mark that single channel. (Clicking in other columns will instead mark groups of related channels.)

Note: the same works for bundles (groups of channels represented with a single button)

Note: If two channels in the same system/group have exactly the same text description in the channel name, clicking the channel name will mark both channels. In this case, use the frequency column to select the desired channel.

5) In the "actions on marked channels" drop-down, select the RANK option.




6) A textbox will appear below the drop-down. Type the rank sort key that you want for the channel into that box, and press enter. See 'background' for a discussion of how to choose rank sort keys



The new value will be shown in the Rank column

7) Repeat if desired for more channels.

8) When complete, if you want to save the changes permanently, save the World

[FAQ-1105] Creating a Rangecast World (or saving changes to an existing World)

Rangecast Worlds can be created by any Rangecast user, and saved to a folder within their user account. The process is that a user loads an existing Rangecast world, makes changes in the player, and saves to their own user account. Once a World is created, any Rangecast user can access it (by name), but only the author can overwrite the existing World with changes. (Other users can save to a new World name.)




CITATIONS

INDEX


Images shown - [block]