First some terminology:
Plugins are content shown on your device
Playlists are that content's schedule
This guide will walk you through the Playlist editor. To learn more about building plugins, go here.
Playlist Items
A playlist item is a single piece of content that represents a single plugin or Mashup.
From left to right:
A running number that indicates its position within the playlist
The icon, decided by its author (TRMNL or a community member)
A thumbnail of this item's most recent render
Title (e.g. "The Office"), item type, and schedule(s)
Badge indicating the last time your device rendered this content
Triple dots to access different options
"Hamburger" icon to drag/drop the ordering of this item relative to others, for example Calendar-Weather-News, or Weather-News-Calendar
The tripe dots provide access to these options:
plugin settings (not available for installed community recipes that do not provide further settings via form fields)
direct access to the plugin's refresh rate (how often a new image is rendered)
show/hide this item temporarily (ignored by your device, not disconnected from your account)
manage the item's schedule and the used color palette
completely remove this item from your Playlist
Playlist Scheduling
Unlike our legacy editor which rendered the same content every day of the week, the improved Playlists manager lets you dictate the timing, duration, and visibility of each playlist item on its own unique schedule - and even its color palette.
Click "Adjust Schedule" behind the triple dots menu to see how it works.
Default duration and schedule
If you don't make any changes, each item on your playlist will display 7 days per week for a length of time equal to your device's refresh rate. The slower your refresh rate, the longer your battery lasts (more details).
If you are OK with seeing the same content every day of the week, in the ordering you specifiy via the drag/drop functionality in the playlist, no action is required.
Custom duration and scheduling
Click "Set a custom schedule" to expand the editor.
In this example we've updated our Work Calendar playlist item to show for 30 minutes, only during the M-F work week, from 08:00-12:30.
Multiple schedules
Click "+ And during" to set additional schedules for this same item.
In this example we've extended our Work Calendar item to also appear on Sunday afternoons from 15:00-21:00, which could be helpful for planning the next week.
Priority / Importance
Below your schedules is a toggle, Important. If you enable this, other items that match the set schedules will be ignored unless they are also set as Important.
This can be helpful for users with many different playlist items, who want to ensure that high priority content (like upcoming appointments) is not "buried" by other matching items.
You may tag as many items "important" as you want. Just note that if all your items are marked important, then your playlist will behave as if none of your items are marked as important.
Copy schedule from
For common use cases like "hide my work calendar on the weekends" there are a few default options in the "Copy schedule from" dropdown:
As you build out custom schedules, for example to see XKCD comics when they're released on M/W/F, you can adopt existing items' schedules into new items, reducing the setup time to make things exactly how you want them.
Color Palette
Our e-ink screens can display different numbers of gray shades, from simple black and white up to 16 or more levels, depending on your device. Larger palettes produce smoother fonts, clearer hierarchy, and better-looking photos, but they require bigger files, slower transitions, and more battery. Smaller palettes are faster and more efficient, but visually simpler.
You can set the desired Color Palette per playlist item to balance performance and image quality for each use case.
Time Travel
On the playlist page, the time travel feature allows you to adjust the day and time and see how your playlist schedules react. No items or settings are changed using this feature. It's a great way to verify all your hard work is behaving as expected, without having to just "wait".