bravesoftdz / flaplabel

Airport style mechanical display simulation components

FlapLabel

Airport style display components for Delphi Firemonkey. Simulates old mechanical flight information displays (the ones with rolls of plates that change in sequence)

FlapLabel was originaly developed in 2002 for actual flight screens for São Paulo Airport (Congonhas). We used plasma displays, expensive at the time, in substitution to even more expensive mechanical boards from Solari. It is still in use in that airport. The original components were for VCL.

This is a port to Firemonkey and is tested on Windows, iOS and Android w/ D10.3.3

Installation

• Compile and install FlapLabelPkg.dpk
• Components TFlapCharSet, TFlapChar and TFlapLabel will be installed

Usage

To use FlapLabels you need at least two components on your form: TFlapCharset and TFlapLabel.

The TFlapCharset contains the art to be used in FlapLabel plates. Depending on the application, you may use more than one charset: one with letters and one with just numbers. Remember that all characters cycle until the desired is reached, so using long charsets is not recommended.

Each FlapLabel uses one charset. One charset can be used by multiple FlapLabels.

The default behaviour for FlapLabel characters is to change in sequence until the target character is reached. But you can set it to Go Direct (cheat), without going trhu all the characters (see example)

• Add a TFlapCharSet to your form ( ex: FlapCharSet1 ) - Charset contains an image with the character set to be used by FlapLabels. Plates are not rendered as text. They are extracted from the charset image, so you can add symbols or icons to your charset (see below)

• Set FlapCharSet properties

  • AirportCharset = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ1234567890.! :' - These are the chars in the bitmap, for look up
  • CharsetBMP = Load a PNG image with charset art (in this case a 240x250 image, shown below)

.

Set charset layout.

• RowCount = 5
• ColCount = 8

Set frame size in pixels.

• FrameWidth = 30
• FrameHeight = 50

Number of frames

• FrameCount = 40

• Add a TFlapLabel component to the Form (ex: FlapLabel1)

• Set FlapLabel1.CharSet property to FlapCharSet1

• Set FlapLabel1.CountFlaps number of digits in the label

• Set FlapLabel1.Caption to 'TEST' (case sensitive)

Label should flap from current state to 'TEST'.

Sample charsets:

. . .

To change FlapLabel text at run time, just change FlapLabel1.Caption Note that you can only use characters that are in your charset

Example

Compile and run TesFlapLabel.dpr ( see screen shot )

videos

• demo screen: https://www.tiktok.com/@omar_reis/video/6829300494842793222

• worst day in the stock market: https://www.tiktok.com/@omar_reis/video/6802287150411877638

Have fun..