End-User
Documentation
Microsoft Surface Live Stream Code Sample
V1.0, June 28, 2010
STIMULANT
180 Capp Street, Suite 6
San Francisco, CA 94110
www.stimulant.io
415 255 7081
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................ 2
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
Prerequisites ...................................................................................................................................................... 3
Application Setup ............................................................................................................................................ 3
Step 1: Installation ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Step 2: Enter User Mode ........................................................................................................................... 4
Step 3: Using the Application ................................................................................................................. 5
Step 4: The Admin Controls..................................................................................................................... 5
Configuration Settings................................................................................................................................... 7
Feed Mechanism.......................................................................................................................................... 7
Look and Feel ................................................................................................................................................ 9
Troubleshooting Crashes ............................................................................................................................ 11
Upgrading ........................................................................................................................................................ 11
Uninstalling ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Support and Questions ............................................................................................................................... 11
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Introduction
This document describes the installation and configuration of the Microsoft Surface Live
Stream Code Sample application.
Prerequisites
Before you are ready to install and configure this application on your Microsoft Surface,
the following should have already taken place:
1. A Microsoft professional has installed your Surface unit in its permanent location.
2. Your Surface unit has been calibrated (either by you or a Microsoft
representative).
3. You know the host information and credentials to connect to this Surface unit
and login as an administrator.
If any of the previous steps have not been met or if you have questions about any of
these steps please contact a Microsoft Surface support representative at (866) 425-8880,
as these steps are not within the scope of this documentation.
Application Setup
STEP 1: INSTALLATION
The application is distributed as a single MSI file for easy installation. To install, follow
these steps directly on the Surface Unit.
1. Log in to the Surface unit in Administrator Mode.
2. Ensure that you have installed the latest Microsoft Surface Updates
(http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692149%28Surface.10%29.aspx)
3. Copy the MSI file to the Surface unit via a network share or an attached USB
storage device.
4. Double-click the MSI file to launch the installer. An installation wizard will follow.
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5. As you go through the installer, the only option that will appear is “Enable Single
Application Mode.” This is described in more detail below.
6. After installing, if you are using this application in a public environment, set the
system volume to its maximum level by clicking the speaker icon in the lowerright corner of the desktop. This will allow the audio in this application to be
heard.
About Single Application Mode
Single Application Mode allows users to access only one application when interacting
with a given Surface unit. This mode disables the Attract Screen and the Access Points in
the corners of the screen that normally provide users access to the Launcher, and thus to
other applications on the Surface Unit. This mode forces users to access only the content
of the current application.
In order to change this setting, uninstall the application (see “Uninstalling” below), then
reinstall it, setting the Single Application Mode checkbox to the desired setting.
STEP 2: ENTER USER MODE
It is important to set up your Surface Unit in User Mode if it will be in a public setting so
that your customers do not have access to administrative settings.
1. Once the application has been installed (Step 1), double-click the desktop icon
that says “Enter User Mode”.
2. Make sure to leave the “enable troubleshooting” checkbox unchecked as you are
entering user mode.
3. Your screen will clear. This may take a few minutes, don’t be concerned.
Eventually the Surface Unit will launch the application and your external monitor (if you
are using one) will not show anything. You are now in User Mode.
User Mode vs Administrator Mode
In User Mode, all Vista UI is suppressed and only the Surface experience is visible. For
normal use of the application, the Surface unit should be in User Mode. This prevents
customers or users from accessing anything else on the machine.
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In Administrator Mode, the Surface unit acts like a regular Vista PC.
In case the need arises to return to Administrator Mode, type Ctrl-Alt-Del on the
supplied keyboard, click “Log Off”, and then log in again with an administrator account.
To return to User Mode, follow the instructions in Step 2.
STEP 3: USING THE APPLICATION
This application will display a stream of content that is pulled from specified news,
Twitter and Flickr feeds. You can select specific content to pull out of the stream and
interact with it. You can scroll through news stories, zoom in and pan around images,
and read tweets. You can also flip over any opened item to reveal a Microsoft Tag, which
can be used with a mobile device to provide a direct link to that same content item on
the web.
Once you launch this application on Surface, you will initially see a screen with a
“Loading Content” notification as the application gets data from Twitter, Flickr, and news
feeds.
Simply touch a piece of content to pull it from the stream. The typical rotation and zoom
gestures on Surface apply. The arrow in the lower-right corner will flip the content over,
revealing the Microsoft Tag for that item. Tapping the button in the upper-right right
corner will close that piece of content.
If a user does not interact with a piece of content after a certain amount of time has
passed, a subtle countdown indicator appears and the item returns back to the stream.
Many aspects of this application can be adjusted and configured. For more information
read the following Admin Controls and Configuration Settings topics.
STEP 4: THE ADMIN CONTROLS
There is a hidden Admin Control panel for this application. Users will not be able to
accidentally discover it. To make it appear, you must take the “FF” byte-tag sticker and
place it on an object (any object that you will not lose) and then place that on Surface.
The Admin Controls will appear once the application senses the FF byte-tag. You can
download printable byte tags here.
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Volume
Once the Admin Controls appear, you can adjust the volume of this application using the
Volume slider. This will control the volume for the audio sound effects that play when
items from the stream are opened and closed or when an item is flipped over.
Stream Speed
This setting in the Admin Controls allows you to control the speed and direction of the
stream. Each rabbit icon represents the fastest speed, in either direction. To slow the
stream down, drag the slider toward the tortoise icon in the middle of the slider bar.
Status of Feeds
Below the Volume control, you will see:

Twitter

Flickr
To the left of these items there will be a green circle to signify that the connections are
currently active and working. If there is a red circle, it signifies that something is broken
with that specific connection.
To the right of these items, text shows you the time when these services were last
updated.
Banning Specific Items or Users from the Stream
When you open the Admin Panel, you also put the application into Admin Mode. This
causes two icons to appear on every item in the stream. One icon is a red X and pressing
this will ban this item from appearing in the stream in the future. This can be useful if
someone posts something inappropriate to Twitter or Flickr. The second icon is a red X
next to a person. Pressing this will ban that user from ever appearing in the stream in the
future. This can be useful if a particular user seems to be posting inappropriate content
frequently. Use the red X icons to control content in the stream as an Admin.
If you incorrectly banned a user or need to remove the current bans on place in the
stream, press the “Remove Bans” button in the Admin Panel, located just below the Feed
Status area.
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Profanity Filter
By default, a profanity filter is in place for this application. If you ever need to disable the
profanity filter, you can uncheck the box in the Admin Panel that says “Enable Profanity
Filter”.
The list of profanity can be edited by changing C:\Program Files\Microsoft Surface Live
Stream\Profanity.txt.
The profanity filter is very basic and can easily be circumnavigated. For example if “red”
was in the profanity list, a post containing “my red dog” would not appear, but “my
bored dog” would appear, as would “my r3d dog” and “my r.e.d dog”.
Stream Mode
By default, the application will put items in the stream in a relatively chronological order,
starting with the most recent items from Twitter, Flickr and news feeds. Any new items
which arrive while the application is running will be shown as soon as possible in the
stream. However, if desired, you can use the Admin Panel to switch the stream to be
“Random,” which would pull items into the stream at random and not reflect any
chronology. In either mode, no items will repeat until all items have been shown at least
once.
Configuration Settings
Beyond the Admin Panel, we provide additional configuration options to adjust the feed
items that appear in the stream and the overall look and feel of the application. You will
need to open the following configuration (XML) file as Administrator in your favorite text
editor to change any settings:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Surface Live Stream\LiveStream.exe.config.
All settings are found under the <applicationSettings> node of the config file. Note:
There is no Save button on the Admin Panel, all changes are saved once the panel is
closed and will be retained between sessions of using the application.
FEED MECHANISM
TwitterQuery
A comma-separated list of query terms. A query term can be:
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
@username – Include items from this user

!@username – Exclude items from this user

keyword – Include this keyword in the search

!keyword – Exclude items containing this word

!http://url/ – Exclude specific items by URL
FlickrQuery
A query in the same format as TwitterQuery.
NewsQuery
A comma-separated list of query terms. A query term can be:

http://url/ – A URL to an RSS or ATOM feed to load.

!@username – Exclude items from this user

!keyword – Exclude items containing this word

!http://url/ – Exclude specific items by URL
FlickrPollInterval
How often to load new items from Flickr.
TwitterPollInterval
How often to load new items from Twitter. The lowest that this value can be is 1/150th of
an hour, or about 30 seconds. If you have multiple Surface units running the application
behind the same IP address, you should change this value to be at least 30 seconds
multiplied by the number of application instances.
NewsPollInterval
How often to load new items from news feeds.
DistributeContentEvenly
When true, the stream will have an even distribution of tweets and news items, even in
the common case where there are many more tweets than news items available.
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NewItemAlert
Items which are published less than this far into the past will show a special alert when
they appear. Set this to a negative value to disable the feature.
LOOK AND FEEL
Background Image
The background image can be changed by replacing C:\Program Files\Microsoft Surface
Live Stream\Resources\WindowBackground.png.
ThemeColor
An ARGB color used for the background of many items in the application.
ForegroundColor
An ARGB color used for text and other colors throughout the application.
VisualizationColor
An ARGB color used for the contact visualizations (“smoke”) shown whenever a user
touches the Surface display.
TweetOpacity
A value between 0 and 1 which specifies the opacity of tweets within the stream.
NewsOpacity
A value between 0 and 1 which specifies the opacity of news items within the stream.
MinNewsSize
The minimum size of news items that are pulled from the stream, in pixels, formatted as
“width, height”.
MaxNewsSize
The maximum size of news items that are pulled from the stream, in pixels, formatted as
“width, height”.
MinStatusSize
The minimum size of twitter items that are pulled from the stream, in pixels, formatted as
“width, height”.
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MaxStatusSize
The maximum size of twitter items that are pulled from the stream, in pixels, formatted
as “width, height”.
MinImageSize
The minimum size of Flickr items that are pulled from the stream, in pixels, formatted as
“width, height”.
MaxImageSize
The maximum size of Flickr items that are pulled from the stream, in pixels, formatted as
“width, height”.
ItemTimeoutFront
The amount of time after which an item pulled from the stream will be pulled back into
the stream after it has last been touched, if it has not been flipped over.
ItemTimeoutBack
The amount of time after which an item pulled from the stream will be pulled back into
the stream after it has last been touched, if it has been flipped over. This should be
considerably longer than ItemTimeoutFront to allow users take photos of the Microsoft
Tag on the back.
MinFeedItemDate
Do not display any items older than this date.
AdminByteTag
The value of the byte tag which is used to bring up the Admin Panel. FF is the default
value — if the application is used in a public venue, this should be changed for security
reasons.
AdminTimeOutDelay
The amount of time after which the Admin Panel should disappear, if it is not in use.
EnableContentScaling
When true, the text in tweets and news items will scale up when their containers are
scaled. When false, the text stays the same size, but it will reflow to fill the space in the
container.
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Troubleshooting Crashes
The application should not crash. If crashes are reported, please submit the crash log
back to Stimulant for troubleshooting.
Log files are kept in C:\Users\Public\Microsoft Surface Live Stream.
Upgrading
In order to upgrade your application, you must first acquire the latest MSI file. Then
simply follow the same instructions under “Installation”. The installation process will
automatically uninstall the old version before installing the new one.
Uninstalling
To uninstall the application, run the MSI installer again and select the “remove” option,
or use the “Programs and Features” control panel to uninstall from there.
Support and Questions
Questions about this document should be directed to surfacesupport@stimulant.io.
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