Slideshow Manager Overview

The Slideshow Manager is the central hub for creating and managing your digital signage content. It opens as a tabbed interface inside the main AccuArk window. This article walks through each tab, explains the available actions, and lists the keyboard shortcuts.

Dashboard Tab

The Dashboard tab is the first thing you see when opening the Slideshow Manager. It provides a quick summary of your slideshow system:

• Total Slides — The number of slides in your system.
• Total Playlists — The number of playlists available at your current location.
• Active Schedules — The number of schedules currently active at your location.

The Dashboard also offers quick-action buttons for the most common tasks:

• New Slide — Opens the Slide Editor to create a new slide (requires MKT_MANAGE_SLIDES).
• New Playlist — Creates a new playlist (requires MKT_MANAGE_SLIDES).
• Emergency Override — Opens the Emergency Override dialog (visible only with MKT_EMERGENCY_OVERRIDE).
• Launch Slideshow — Starts the player (visible only with MKT_LAUNCH_PLAYER).

If an emergency override is currently active, the Dashboard displays an indicator showing the override status.

Slides Tab

The Slides tab shows a grid of all slides in the system. The grid displays each slide's name, type, duration, enabled status, tags, and creation date. You can filter and sort the grid to find specific slides.

Available actions on the Slides tab:

• New Slide — Opens a blank Slide Editor.
• Edit Slide — Opens the selected slide in the Slide Editor for modification.
• Delete Slide — Removes the selected slide after confirmation. Slides that are currently in playlists will show a warning.
• Clone Slide — Creates a duplicate of the selected slide with "(Copy)" appended to the name. This is useful when you want a variation of an existing slide without starting from scratch.
• Enable/Disable — Toggles whether the slide is active. Disabled slides are skipped during playback even if they are in a playlist.
• Refresh — Reloads the slide list from the database.

Playlists Tab

The Playlists tab uses a split layout. The left panel shows a list of all playlists available at your location. The right panel shows the slides within the selected playlist, displayed in play order.

Playlist-level actions:

• New Playlist — Creates a new empty playlist with a name you provide.
• Edit Playlist — Lets you rename the playlist or change its properties (loop mode, global flag).
• Delete Playlist — Removes the selected playlist and all its slide associations.

Slide management within a playlist:

• Add Slide — Opens a picker to add one or more slides to the playlist.
• Remove Slide — Removes the selected slide from the playlist (does not delete the slide itself).
• Move Up / Move Down — Changes the play order of the selected slide.
• Drag and Drop — You can also reorder slides by dragging rows directly in the grid.

The playlist detail grid shows each slide's name, duration (with override capability), sort position, and enabled status. The total playlist duration is displayed at the bottom.

Schedules Tab

The Schedules tab shows all schedules configured for your current location. The grid displays each schedule's playlist name, mode, priority, enabled status, and time parameters.

Available actions:

• New Schedule — Opens the Schedule Editor dialog to create a new schedule.
• Edit Schedule — Opens the selected schedule in the Schedule Editor for modification.
• Delete Schedule — Removes the selected schedule after confirmation.

If the system detects scheduling conflicts (multiple active schedules at the same priority), a warning message appears at the top of the Schedules tab.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The Slideshow Manager supports these keyboard shortcuts:

Keyboard shortcuts are permission-aware. For example, Ctrl+N does nothing if you do not have MKT_MANAGE_SLIDES permission, and Ctrl+L does nothing without MKT_LAUNCH_PLAYER.

Status Bar

The status bar at the bottom of the Slideshow Manager shows loading status and the currently active location name. When data is loading or refreshing, it displays "Loading..." to indicate a background operation is in progress.

What to Read Next

• Creating and Editing Slides for a complete guide to the Slide Editor.
• Creating and Managing Playlists for details on playlist operations.
• Understanding Schedule Modes for an explanation of each scheduling option.