Five words carry most of the meaning in Screenly.
Content is a file you uploaded, a web page, a live stream, or an app. A playlist is an ordered, looping rotation of content with a duration per item. A schedule says when that playlist may play. A screen is a display plus the device driving it. A workspace holds all of it, plus the people who can see it.
The loop
You add content, put it in a playlist, give the playlist a schedule, and assign that playlist to screens or to a label. The screen picks it up on its next check-in and reports back.
Then change the playlist, and every screen showing it follows without being touched again. That is the whole system.
Two consequences worth knowing early
Everything reaches a screen through a playlist. There is no way to send a single image to a display directly. If you want one thing on one screen, that is a playlist with one item in it.
The schedule belongs to the playlist, not the screen. There is no separate schedule object to create and attach. Assign a playlist to five screens and all five inherit its timing, evaluated in each screen’s own local time.
Where each one is covered
| Content | Formats, durations, PDFs, web pages, caching |
| Playlists | Building a rotation, priority, transitions |
| Scheduling | Rules, overlaps, time zones |
| Screens | Connecting, settings, health, fleet jobs |
| Workspaces | People, roles, sharing, settings |