Just Add Power Advanced On-Screen Display

Version 1.6

Driver Overview

The Just Add Power Advanced On-Screen Display driver displays static text and live RTI system-variable values on compatible Just Add Power Omega and Ultra decoders. It is an OSD-focused utility and does not replace the switching, routing, CEC, ImagePull, or general endpoint-management drivers used elsewhere in a Just Add Power system.

One driver instance supports up to 32 manually addressed decoders. Commands can target one configured decoder or All Enabled Decoders. The driver provides exactly four master commands: Show OSD, Show Static OSD, Hide OSD, and On-Screen Diagnostics.

The driver supports a Default OSD Presentation plus as many as 15 named OSD Profiles. Each profile stores its own color, font size, alignment, screen position, horizontal and vertical offsets, display duration, and opacity. This allows an integrator to create reusable presentations such as Center Notice, Top Banner, Bottom Alert, and Persistent Message.

The driver also supports up to 50 predefined OSD Static Messages and 50 OSD Variable Templates. Each Static Message has a friendly selector name and reusable text. Each Variable Template can reference a Boolean, Integer, or String system variable from another RTI driver. Friendly tokens and stable VAR1 through VAR50 tokens allow current automation values to be inserted when Show OSD or Show Static OSD executes.

For unusually large AMP systems, separate driver instances divided into logical groups (e.g., Residence, Conference Rooms, Public Displays, or Building Floors) would be better than one driver containing every decoder. This also makes All Enabled Decoders commands faster and safer.

Why Use This Driver

Some broader Just Add Power drivers expose OSD only through an Advanced Console Command. That method is useful for unrestricted console access, but each macro must contain the decoder selection and correctly formatted raw command text, quoted message, hexadecimal color, font size, alignment, duration, and other command-line parameters. It also does not provide a convenient mechanism for selecting RTI system variables and inserting their current values into the message.

This driver provides dedicated OSD commands and moves presentation details into named reusable profiles. The GUI designer can enter readable Message Text or select a predefined Static Message, select a decoder and named profile, and optionally override the duration. Variable Templates resolve automatically when either display command runs. This reduces repeated raw command construction, makes macros easier to read and maintain, and allows the same wording and presentation to be reused consistently across many messages and decoders.

Continue using the broader Just Add Power driver for routing, switching, CEC, ImagePull, and general endpoint control. Use this driver alongside it when the project requires reusable OSD presentation, live RTI variable values, simplified macros, or coordinated messages across multiple decoders.

Example Use Cases

1. Display Front Door: Open or Front Door: Closed by inserting a contact-sensor Boolean variable into a named alert profile.

2. Display current audio volume, such as Volume 35%, by selecting an Integer volume variable, entering Volume followed by a space as its Prefix, and entering a normal single percent sign as its Suffix. The driver performs the required percent-sign escaping automatically.

3. Show alarm state, garage-door position, temperature, power status, weather alert text, or another live value supplied by an RTI driver.

4. Display an incoming caller, doorbell, security, or automation notification on the television currently connected to a selected decoder.

5. Send an urgent or informational message to All Enabled Decoders without creating a separate raw console command for every television.

6. Use a short-duration center notice for routine feedback, a bottom banner for status information, and a persistent high-visibility profile for important warnings.

7. Enable the decoder's built-in On-Screen Diagnostics during commissioning, then disable the overlay from an RTI macro.

8. Configure Welcome Home, Security System Armed, or another frequently used notification once, then select it by name in multiple RTI macros.

9. Combine reusable wording with live feedback, such as Front Door: {Door Status} or Volume {Office Volume}.

Configure Decoders

1. Add one Just Add Power Advanced On-Screen Display driver to the RTI project.

2. Set Decoder Count from 0 through 32. Only the selected decoder sections and command choices appear.

3. Enter a friendly Decoder Name and IP Address for each decoder. Do not enter http:// or an API path.

4. Leave Enabled checked for decoders that may receive OSD commands. Disabled decoders are excluded from individual and All Enabled Decoders operations.

5. Confirm that the XP processor can reach TCP port 80 on every decoder network.

6. Retain the default request settings during commissioning. Enable Trace for normal testing and Verbose HTTP Trace only when detailed request and sanitized message information is needed.

Addresses are entered manually so the driver can support manually configured, JADConfig, AMP/VLAN, and AMP Alternate systems.

Configure OSD Profiles

Default OSD Presentation supplies color, size, alignment, screen position, offsets, duration, and opacity when Show OSD selects Default OSD Presentation.

Set OSD Profile Count from 0 through 15. Select 0 to use only the default presentation. Each displayed profile section stores a friendly Profile Name and the complete OSD presentation. Show OSD displays the configured Profile Name in its selector.

Custom colors use six hexadecimal RGB digits without #. Permanent duration remains visible until hidden or replaced. Large text can clip depending on output resolution, display overscan, text length, and position; test every profile on its intended display.

Font size is selected by the dealer for the Default OSD Presentation and each profile. There is no universal font size that guarantees fit across different resolutions, displays, overscan settings, positions, or message lengths. Reduce the font size, shorten the message, or add deliberate line breaks when clipping occurs.

Configure OSD Static Messages

1. Set OSD Static Message Count from 0 through 50. Select 0 when predefined messages are not required.

2. Enter a friendly Message Name for each entry. This name appears in the Show Static OSD selector.

3. Enter the reusable Message Text. Static messages may contain {VAR1} through {VAR50} or configured friendly Variable Template tokens. Enter the two characters backslash+n wherever a displayed line break is required; for example, Front Door OpennPlease Check Entry.

4. Variable tokens are resolved when Show Static OSD executes, so a predefined message can display a current live value. The same character conversion, 250-character limit, profile, and duration rules used by Show OSD apply.

5. Message Name is only the dealer-friendly dropdown label. Message Text is the content displayed on the decoder.

6. Renaming or editing a Static Message updates every macro that selects that numbered entry after the revised project is sent to the processor. Reopen the command selector if Integration Designer continues to show an older friendly name.

7. Setting OSD Static Message Count to 0 hides Show Static OSD. The original Show OSD command remains available for arbitrary text entered directly in a macro.

Configure OSD Variable Templates

1. Set OSD Variable Count from 0 through 50.

2. Enter each Friendly Name without braces.

3. Select Boolean, Integer, or String, then select the corresponding RTI System Variable.

4. Boolean variables support custom False and True text. Integer variables support divisors for RTI fixed-point values. Prefix and Suffix are optional. A typed backslash+n sequence in a Prefix, Suffix, or live variable value becomes a displayed line break.

5. Use {VAR1} through {VAR50}, or the configured friendly name in braces, in Message Text. A slot named Garage Door Position supports both {VAR1} and {Garage Door Position}.

Assign Commands

The OSD Commands category contains exactly four commands. Each command contains a Decoder selector with All Enabled Decoders followed by configured decoder friendly names.

Show OSD parameters are Decoder, Message Text, OSD Profile, and Display Duration. The selected profile supplies color, size, alignment, position, offsets, opacity, and its normal duration. Display Duration is entered manually in seconds: -1 uses the selected profile duration, 0 creates a permanent message that remains until hidden or replaced, and 1 through 86400 overrides the profile for that invocation. Message Text can contain configured OSD Variable Template tokens.

Show Static OSD parameters are Decoder, Static Message, OSD Profile, and Display Duration. Static Message is a dropdown of the friendly names configured in Driver Properties. Its stored text may include Variable Template tokens, which are resolved when the command executes.

The Default OSD Presentation and every OSD Profile also use a manual Display Duration field. Enter 0 for a persistent profile or 1 through 86400 for the profile's normal duration in seconds.

OSD Character Compatibility

1. Printable ASCII letters A-Z and a-z, numbers 0-9, and spaces are safe. Common ASCII punctuation is also safe, including period, comma, exclamation point, question mark, hyphen, underscore, slash, parentheses, square brackets, number sign, at sign, ampersand, plus sign, equals sign, semicolon, and a single colon.

2. Straight double quotation marks and apostrophes may be entered normally. The driver protects them when constructing the shell-safe decoder command. Dollar signs, asterisks, and other ordinary printable ASCII characters are also protected from shell expansion by the driver's command quoting.

3. Enter a normal single percent sign in Message Text, a Variable Template Prefix or Suffix, or a substituted RTI value. The driver doubles it only in the transport command because the decoder treats percent as a formatting character. One percent sign is displayed, and RTI feedback retains the original single percent sign. Do not manually enter two percent signs.

4. Enter the two printable characters backslash+n in Show OSD Message Text, Static Message Text, a Variable Template Prefix or Suffix, or a live variable value wherever a displayed line break is required. Literal backslash+r+backslash+n and backslash+r sequences are accepted as equivalent input. Actual carriage returns and line feeds are also normalized. All requested breaks are sent using the decoder's tested multiline representation.

5. The driver converts smart quotation marks to straight quotation marks, en/em dashes to a hyphen, an ellipsis to three periods, and the degree symbol to the word degrees. Unsupported non-ASCII characters are replaced with ?.

6. Other than the documented backslash+n line-break sequence, avoid a literal backslash because the justAPI CLI and decoder can interpret it as an escape sequence.

7. The decoder firmware uses two consecutive colons as an internal OSD event-field separator. After expanding all Variable Templates, the driver removes every double-colon sequence before constructing the command. A normal single colon within a message is safe.

8. If the completed message begins with a hyphen, the driver adds a transport-only leading space so the native OSD script does not mistake the message for a command option. Last Displayed Text and other RTI feedback retain the original message without this protective space. Hyphens elsewhere in a message are safe.

9. The completed message is limited to 250 characters after template expansion and compatibility conversion. Static text, resolved variable values, prefixes, suffixes, spaces, punctuation, and encoded line breaks all contribute to this limit. Longer messages are truncated.

10. The 250-character value is a conservative driver safeguard, not a manufacturer-published OSD limit. Practical visible capacity is normally lower and depends on the selected profile and display.

11. As a starting point, keep larger-font lines to approximately 30-50 characters, smaller-font lines to approximately 60-80 characters, and multiline messages below approximately 200 total characters. Verify the final result on the intended display.

Hide OSD removes the active OSD overlay from the selected decoder or all enabled decoders.

On-Screen Diagnostics offers Enable and Disable. Enable displays the decoder's built-in diagnostic overlay. Disable uses the tested OSD-off command and can also dismiss other active OSD content on the selected decoder.

GUI Feedback

Last Displayed Text, Last Command Result, Commanded OSD Visible, and Commanded OSD Hidden can be used for GUI feedback. Visible and Hidden describe the last successful command issued by this driver; they are not continuously polled confirmation of physical screen content. A timed message can disappear without changing these variables.

Static Message Troubleshooting

If Show Static OSD is not visible, set OSD Static Message Count to at least 1 and reopen the Integration Designer command selector. If a renamed selector still shows its old name, close and reopen the selector after saving Driver Properties.

If a Static Message displays a token literally, confirm that the corresponding OSD Variable Template exists and that the token exactly matches its Friendly Name, including spaces and capitalization. The stable {VARn} token avoids friendly-name spelling errors.

Static Message changes are project configuration changes and take effect on the XP processor after the revised project is sent. They are not runtime-editable from an RTI panel.

Developed & Supported By

Buttonwood Technologies, LLC

rti@buttonwoodtechnologies.com

https://www.buttonwoodtechnologies.com

Version History

Version 1.6: Standardized dealer documentation, Buttonwood Technologies support information, third-party driver notice and disclaimer, and network/display operational warnings. Runtime communications, commands, variables, events, and OSD behavior are unchanged from version 1.5.

Version 1.5: Initial release.

Product Specific Warning

On-screen text and diagnostic overlays can obscure video, captions, menus, warnings, or other source information and can remain visible if a hide command or network request fails. Do not use the overlay as the sole emergency, security, accessibility, or life-safety notification path. The dealer must confirm every decoder address and target selection, test show and hide behavior after switching and restart, constrain substituted variable content, and provide a recovery method for clearing an unintended overlay.

Third-Party Driver Notice and Disclaimer

This driver is independently developed by Buttonwood Technologies, LLC and is not developed, endorsed, supported, or certified by the manufacturers or service providers with which it interoperates, unless expressly stated otherwise. The driver is provided “AS IS” and “WITH ALL FAULTS,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and noninfringement. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Buttonwood Technologies, LLC shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, loss of data, loss of use, service interruption, or lost profits arising from installation or use of the driver. Nothing in this notice excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.