The home screen presents the main menu for each user of the system. When the system is unlocked and the home screen is loaded, the tower amplifier will also become active so selections will play immediately.
Toolbar
This toolbar appears at the top of the screen in all menus. From left to right its components are:
- Padlock
- Tap the padlock to lock the system before you walk away to prevent unauthorized tampering (system automatically locks after 15 minutes of inactivity from most screens)
- Front speaker control
- Tap the speaker to cycle through three volume settings: Mute, Quiet and Loud. The default setting will revert after you lock the system (or it times out)
- Save the default setting and fine level adjustment in Settings - Volume
- Back arrow
- Tap the back arrow to return to the previous screen
- Home
- Tap the home icon or Chime Master logo to return to your home screen
- Date and time information
- not touch enabled
- System status indicator colors and icons
- You can tap this icon for text explanation of the following:
- Blue for Standby
- Yellow for Initializing (amplifier waking up)
- Green for Ready
- Red for Muted (upper half outside, lower half inside zones)
- Music note is displayed during selection play (tap icon to display title of selection)
- Keyboard icon is displayed when keyboard mode is active (automation is suspended)
- Diagonal slash indicates that automation is suspended
- Hour glass indicates amp initializing, swinging bells are coasting (Tower bells option) or the database is busy
- Gears indicates schedule processing after boot-up or changes to schedules or settings
Because there really is no limit to the number of buttons you can customize on the home screen, you may have to scroll the screen to see all of the selections.
Administrative features
These buttons will only appear on administrator home screens.
- Schedule
- brings up the scheduler menu.
- Settings
- brings up the system settings menu.
Play control
- Next Selection
- stops the current selection and begins playing the next selection (if more selections are in the play queue).
- Stop
- will stop the current selection and clear the play queue.
- Double clicking the lighted power button will also do this.
- Play Selection
- menu allows you to pick a selection, an arrangement, and an instrument.
These buttons can be removed from some user home screens by an administrator.
- Keyboard
- play the bells from your connected MIDI keyboard and make recordings to expand your library.
- Remote
- connect a smart phone or tablet to use as a remote control.
Quick function buttons
The remaining buttons on the home screen are individually configurable on Settings Customize Home screen. They can be set to ring bells (specific), play music (specific songs, random seasonal songs or a random album songs).
After tapping on one of these buttons, a confirmation window will pop up. All automatic ringing is suspended while the system waits for you to confirm that you are ready to play the selection. If you remain on this screen without tapping Yes, the system will timeout and return to automatic ringing in one hour. Tap No if you want to resume automatic ringing without playing the selection.
When setting up these buttons, you can select
- Button icon
- Unique, descriptive name (label)
- Type of action
- Selection(s)
- Number of songs or minutes to play
Factory default quick functions
These functions will be on your home screen on a new system. You can edit or delete them.
- Swing
- for call to church - 5 minutes (or until Stopped)
- Peal
- for weddings and festive services - 5 minutes (or until Stopped)
- Toll
- for funerals - 5 minutes (or until Stopped)
- Music
- two songs from the Almanac's current season