Play a learning activity on a screen

Follow these steps in your own Denframe. This website never connects to your household, your accounts or your devices, and never asks for your credentials.

1. 1

   Find an activity

   In Studio, open Library. The Activities shelf lists the activities Denframe includes and those you have added. Tell the Time is included with Denframe.

   The others are in the Denframe Library: find them under Get more, or on this website under Activities, and choose Get on the activity’s page. An activity from someone else arrives as a .denframepack file: choose Import a file, or drop it anywhere on the Library tab, then Add to library. Use the library explains both.

   Adding an activity never changes a dashboard, starts a screen or turns on sound. The public website never contacts your Denframe.

2. 2

   Look and listen first

   Open the activity. Once it is added, its card plays on the page; until then, its signed example shows. An included activity is added as it first plays.

   Under the player, the cards are listed in the chosen language. Listen plays a card’s recording, and Listen to the answer its answer; Show words shows what each recording says. Play from this card starts the page’s player from that card.

   Details has its cards, languages and pace (Show, Think, Answer and Rest, in seconds); Credits names who made its pictures and recordings. Activities in the Denframe Library are reviewed. First Words and Animal Sounds were published without a listening review of their recordings, and their pages say so: tell us if something sounds wrong.

3. 3

   Play it on a screen

   Beside the card, choose the Language if there is more than one, and the Screen if more than one can show it: the one you last used is chosen to begin with.

   Under Length, choose how long it plays:

   • One round: every card once (the page says how long a round takes).
   • Keep going: until you stop it.
   • Until a time: until the time you set in Until.

   Choose Play on and the screen’s name. The button becomes Playing on that screen with Stop; Studio’s header shows what is playing too. With no screen to reach, Play here shows the cards full screen in this browser.

   Playing never adds a dashboard to your list. When the play ends, or you stop it, the screen goes back to what it showed before. While it plays, the screen’s playlists and schedules wait; a play survives a restart of the host if its time hasn’t run out.

4. 4

   Choose the screen’s sound

   The switch named Sound on and the screen’s name, under the play button, turns the chosen screen’s sound for activities on or off, and says what the screen will do: speak, play silently, hold the sound during quiet hours or while the screen is dimmed, or that it can’t play sound.

   Sound belongs to the screen, not the activity. In Studio, open Screens & rotation, then Calibrate the room: Enable learning pack sound, Learning pack volume, Pack narration and Pack sound effects are that screen profile’s own settings. Several screens can share one profile, so check which screens it covers before changing it.

   Quiet hours, interruptions and browser autoplay rules still apply, and adding an activity never turns sound on. Recorded MP3 cues are the baseline; Denframe doesn’t promise a speech voice for every language, and silent activities such as Tell the Time have no recordings. Studio’s dashboard previews stay silent; on the activity page, sound plays only when you press the player’s speaker or Listen. Touch controls need a screen profile with touch on and a touch-capable device. Sound and touch on Cast, Android and Nest Hub have not been checked on real devices yet, and Nest Hub touch is unverified.

5. 5

   Keep it on a screen (optional)

   To show an activity regularly, choose Keep it on a screen…. Give the dashboard a Name, choose the Screen, and under When choose In its rotation, On school days (Monday to Friday) or Every day. For the last two, set From and Until. The dialog says what it will make; choose Keep it, or Cancel to make nothing.

   This makes a named dashboard of the activity’s cards, which appears in your dashboards list, and adds it to the screen’s rotation or shows it there at those times.

   To put the cards on a dashboard you already have, choose Put the cards on a dashboard… instead: Add the cards adds a Learning cards block beside what is there, and Play on its Learning cards changes the cards an existing one plays. In the editor, + Add a block offers Learning cards too; its panel changes the activity, the language and which cards play.

   The activity sets its own timing and whether it loops; it doesn’t change a dashboard’s schedule or time on screen. A short screen rotation may cut an activity off.

6. 6

   Keep a copy of the file

   A dashboard’s Learning cards block plays the exact release it was given. Adding a newer release of an activity changes no dashboard, and the activity’s page offers no update for the dashboards that use it.

   Under Details, Download the original file saves the exact .denframepack you added, with its content and credits; it is not a privacy-redacted design. A layout shared from a dashboard that plays an activity carries only a reference to it, so give the activity’s file with it. A full backup includes added activities; a database-only copy doesn’t.

   Installed content stays on the host. Removing an activity stops any screen playing it and puts that screen back to what it showed before.

7. 7

   Check it worked

   The screen shows the activity’s card, turning from prompt to answer at its pace; for an activity with recordings, you hear it when that screen’s Sound on switch is on. The activity’s page shows Playing on that screen with Stop. After one round, the screen returns to what it showed before.

   To make your own activities, read the multimedia pack specification.