The Matrix Main Interface

The number “1” on the left is this iPad’s device ID. It tells The Matrix the location of this particular iPad within the rectangular matrix. “1” means the upper left position and then it flows from left to right then up to down, just like reading a book. Tap this number to change it. If you have four iPads in your matrix, for example, they should be uniquely set to 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectfully.

The ‘Play Signal’ and ‘Broadcast’ Listening buttons control whether your iPad is actively listening for either a play signal or a broadcast from another iPad. When they are blue, they are listening. When they are green, they are receiving. When they transparent, they are off and you will not be connected.

The Projects table lists all the projects installed on this iPad.

To create a new project, hit the green-circled plus button.

To delete a project or resort the list, use the red-circled x button.

The Preview button will show you what the project’s animation will look like across all the iPads but shrunken down to fit on just this one iPad. This greatly helps in the creation of your projects.

Tap the detail disclosure button if you want to edit the name or wallpaper of a project.

When you tap the detail disclosure button or the green-circled plus button, you get this Edit Project popover.

Here you can change the name of the project or select a wallpaper color or image.

Tap the Copy button to duplicate this project.

These three buttons, as well as the picker wheels to their right, all relate to the selected project in the Projects table.

The Broadcast button is how you send your projects to other iPads via wifi or bluetooth.

When it is red it is broadcasting a bonjour service for other iPads to find. (If you have a big project, perhaps with lots of images, it may take a while to prepare the broadcast and a ‘wait’ spinner will be shown before it turns red.) Tapping it while it is red will stop the broadcast and any current connections.

Any iPad running The Matrix with its Broadcast Listening button blue -- which will turn green -- should connect and start receiving the project. If it doesn’t see the Notes About Connecting.

The Email button provides an additional way to share your projects. Just email the selected project to anyone else who also has The Matrix installed on their iPad. They will need to open the email on their iPad and then hold their finger on The Matrix’s icon in the email’s attachment. This will bring up a dialog allowing them to open the project in The Matrix. Be careful though because this will override any projects with the exact same name.

If you spend a lot of time creating a project, I highly recommend you email it to yourself just for backup.

The picker wheels show the size of the matrix for the currently selected project. Rows are horizontal and columns are vertical. Multiply the number of rows by the number of columns and that is how many iPads you will need to fill the matrix.

The ‘Repeat X’ wheel determines how many times the project will repeat while it is playing. If the first one, the infinity symbol, is selected then the project will repeat indefinitely.

The Chapter table appears when you select a project in the Project table. If the project contains no chapters, you’ll see a green “Add A Chapter” button instead.

Chapters are played consecutively in the animation -- the second will start playing when the first one finishes, etc.

Much like the Projects table, use the red-circled x button to delete or reorder the chapters, and the green-circled plus button to add one.

When a chapter is selected you can tap its Preview button to watch the animation, condensed to fit on one iPad, for that particular chapter only. Thus you don’t have to play the entire animation just to check out one chapter.

The detail disclosure button will bring up a popover to edit certain elements of the chapter as described below.

The Chapter Detail popover allows you to change the name of the chapter and set its duration in seconds.

The ‘List of Layers’ button will present all the layers in that chapter in a table format. This allows you to edit layers that may not be accessible in the graphical view due to being covered by other layers, or too small to select, etc. The layers table will also provide a preview button after selecting a layer so that you can preview the layers individually.

The next button is the Transition selection. The transition plays after the chapter duration has expired and lasts for one second. If there is another chapter following the selected chapter, then its animation will be played concurrently with the transition effect.

The ‘Flash Screen’ option will blink the screen for the duration of the chapter.

If there are any layers from previous chapters that have the ‘Persists til Erased’ option selected, selecting ‘Erase Persisting’ will erase them before this chapter plays.

The copy button will create a duplicate of the chapter.

Just like Projects and Chapters, use the green button to add a Layer.

Tapping the red-circled x button will turn the background of all layers in the graphical view to red (or magenta if the foreground is red). This means that you can double-tap any layer to delete it.

If you need to resort a layer (that is, put one on top or behind another), you will have to tap the detail disclosure button for its chapter, then ‘List Of Layers’, and then the red-circled x button in that layer table.

If ‘Start Position’ is selected, the layers are shown in their start position. If ‘End Position’ is selected, the layers will be shown where they will be moved to by the animation. If you want your layer to move from left to right, for example, drag it to the left with ‘Start Position’ selected, then select ‘End Position’ and drag it to the right.

Please note that ‘End Position’ will have no effect if ‘Stay at Start’ is selected in that layer’s detail.

If you double-tap on a layer in the graphical view (or tap the detail disclosure button from its chapter’s list of layers), you get the Layer detail view.

This one is for a text layer. The big white rounded-rectangle is where you enter your text. Multiple lines is okay and it will keep scrolling.

‘Move to End’ means the text will start at its Start Position and move to its End Position as chosen in the graphical view.

‘To End and Back’ means it will move from its start to its end and then back to its start position. Some of the animations will reverse as well.

‘Stay at Start’ means the layer will not change position at all. This saves you from the hassle of trying to match the end position to the start position.

‘Persists til Erased’ means the layer will not be erased when the chapter’s duration has expired and will remain visible until the last chapter has finished or until a chapter starts that has ‘Erase Persisting’ selected. However it will not continue its animation.

The top picker wheel controls the font of the text -- name, size, and color.

The bottom picker wheel is where you choose the animation. The movement of the layer is controlled by its start and end position in the graphical view, but this is where you can add some extras.

If you choose an option from the first component, you cannot select any from the others. But if ‘None’ is selected in the first component then you can choose one animation from each of the remaining three components.

I think they are pretty self-explanatory and its much easier to just try them out than have me explain each one. Hopefully I will add to these options with future releases.

For an image layer, you can tap the blue rectangle to select a photo from your iPad’s photo library.

Any images larger than 1024 x 1024 will be proportionately scaled down until it fits in that size.

You can also use the keypad to control the display size of your image by setting the scale percentage. A 100% setting will show the image at its original size (or 1024 x 1024, whichever is smaller), and a 50% setting will show the image at half its adjusted original size, etc.