Touch Screen Kiosk Software for Developers, Designers and Agencies
Our integration tools can be provided in such a way as to offer APi level access to the peripherals on kiosks and any web services you wish to connect to.
This allows developers from agencies (web, design, interactive) and hardware distributors out there to get on with what they are good at whilst we look after the dirty business of working in the hardware environment and integrating the project peripherals to the hardware. We can integrate any hardware, if you have your own hardware and peripherals we can work with these too but we will need one of each to integrate and of course the time to do it!
Here is a very light overview, for obvious reasons we don't go into too much detail but you only need to speak to us and qualify yourself so that we can discuss your project:
Touch4 Phoenix Programming Environment
Touch4 Phoenix is written in .NET and uses the Microsoft .NET 3.5 Framework, within the Phoenix Engine there are 7 different User Interface Modules, most agencies will use Flash technologies can host a wide range of Controls or Languages ranging from Silverlight, .NET Forms, WPF, Flash, Web Applications and ActiveX controls to name a few.
Touch4 Communication
Once we've built a flow of communication we then expose the commands you need to your application, we provide you with code snippets to get you going and you can start to take control very quickly in the knowledge that the commands you are sending are having their effect (e.g. outputs like printing, kicking off web services, popping up viewers for media, etc.)
The environment we create is asynchronous though this means that we can sniff for events and tell your application when it's occurring and with the relevant string, communicate with your application and wait for response if required. Typically these are events form the kiosk e.g. scanning, cash or credit card events, etc.
We also have various routines that you can call from Flash and other languages that let you save CSV Log Files to disk or output XML documents (with an option to encrypt the data). We have a routine that can then push this data to a remote web server using our built in Upload Routines. There are many more functions that extend the limitations of an application along with built in Phoenix commands.
Touch4 Operating System & General Environment
As an operating system we tend to use Windows 7 derivatives although as long as the peripherals you wish to use are driver compatible, we can use most Windows operating systems.
Built in to Phoenix are timeout routines that can automatically unload your Application and load the Screen Saver along with Sleep routines so you can disable the kiosk in the evenings if required. Phoenix also has the ability to take the kiosk offline using various rules, for example a kiosk that is dependent on internet connectivity or a printer being on-line.
The Phoenix Monitor (our main application for playing your content) takes over the Windows Shell so the Desktop, Start Menu and Taskbar are not visible or accessible on any locked down kiosk.
Easy Access for Kiosk Maintenance
We have a 'back-door' for engineers that can be accessed by inserting an encrypted USB key that will unload the main application and show the maintenance application to either apply update patches or calibrate the screen. This module like all the other modules can be customised to meet all our clients bespoke requirements, should it be required.
Kiosk Health Information
Within Phoenix there are standard routines that push the health status information for each kiosk to a server, ours or yours.
Touch4 Methodology
Generally we will get together and discuss the project to see where your job finishes and where our starts. From there we will create a flow of how we see it working with generic code snippets and then cost the work.
Please fill in the form or call us on 01977 669955if you wish to discuss this further:
