System settings

The collecting point for everything concerning this booth as a device.

Setup#

The list that guides through the initial setup — described under First start.

Build type#

Photo booth or photo mirror - described under Photo mirror.

Admin access#

Everything about the way into the admin area: the PIN, the automatic logout and the hidden area in the bottom left of the screen that opens the login dialog.

While the factory default 0000 is in place, anyone can get in. The hidden area can be given a press duration — it then has to be held for a few seconds so that a guest does not hit it by accident.

The automatic logout counts from the last activity. With "Input extends the login" switched on — the state the photo booth ships in — keyboard, mouse and touch count as well. Switched off, only what is actually saved or loaded counts; writing in a field for longer then ends in a logout in the middle of the work.

Automatic saving#

With the switch on, every change is applied immediately and the save buttons disappear; that includes the layout editor.

Not affected are buttons that do something instead of saving — test print, factory reset, retry cloud upload and the like. Those still need a deliberate click.

Menu view#

Plus: which area appears when the admin area opens, whether accordions start expanded or collapsed, and whether the buttons for the on-screen keyboard and the layout editor are visible.

Reopen the section last viewed returns to exactly the place where the admin area was left. This only applies as long as the login is still valid — after signing out and once the session has expired, the configured default section appears again.

Display & scaling#

The guest screens are designed for Full HD — 1920 × 1080 in landscape, 1080 × 1920 in portrait. The photo booth converts this size to its own window: on a smaller screen everything becomes correspondingly smaller, on a larger one bigger. Nothing needs to be set for that.

The first line in the area states the result — how large the window of the photo booth is and at what percentage the interface runs there. On a screen with 1920 × 1080 that is 100 percent, on a Microsoft Surface with 200 percent display scaling in Windows about 71 percent.

Reference width and reference height below are something else: they hold the resolution of the connected screen and thus define the format of the editing area in the screen editors. The photo booth measures them at start and follows along when the screen is swapped. To have it right away, click "Adopt from screen" — the button only appears when the stored and the measured resolution differ. Collapsed, the area then reads "Screen changed". These values do not affect the size of the interface.

If the conversion does not fit on a particular screen, "Manual (fixed zoom factor)" with a self-chosen value helps.

"Live image display" below only concerns the camera image: whether it fills the screen and how much margin remains. Buttons and texts are unaffected.

Graphics acceleration#

The interface is drawn by the graphics card. That is the factory setting and usually the right one: scrolling in the admin area and in the layout editor is twice as smooth, transitions and videos do not stutter, and the processor stays free for camera, processing and upload.

The tick "Turn off graphics acceleration" is the emergency exit for devices whose graphics driver mangles the display. This shows as a completely black live view although the photos are fine, or as black areas, stripes and frozen pictures in the interface. After setting it the software has to be restarted; the processor then draws again and the display becomes noticeably more sluggish.

Below the tick it says what the open display is currently drawing with. If the admin area is opened from a tablet on the network, the information applies to that tablet.

A current display engine is required: "Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime", verified with version 153.0.4234.32. It normally keeps itself up to date; its version is shown in the Windows settings under "Apps" > "Installed apps". If it is considerably older, reinstalling the runtime from the Microsoft website helps.

Timeouts & error messages#

After these times the software aborts a step that does not respond and shows an error message. They are an emergency brake against hanging, not a waiting time for guests.

They only need attention when steps abort during operation that actually work: a slow camera, a weak computer or a thin mobile connection need longer than the default. Set too tight, the booth discards running captures and transfers for no reason.

The values depend on camera, computer and network and therefore apply to all events.

Online/offline mode#

Puts the booth deliberately into offline operation. The area lists what is then not offered — cloud upload, mail sending, web album QR codes and the AI portraits. The latter need a provider on the internet: in offline mode neither the style selection nor the tile of the AI mode appears, and a running session delivers the picture without a style instead of running into a wait.

When the network drops in the middle of the party, there is no time to look for the area. The same switch therefore sits at the top of the admin menu, below "Save automatically", and takes effect immediately. Anyone who does not want to open the admin area at all finds it in the booth's quick settings menu as well.

Remote management#

The booth reports its state to a web server and accepts commands from there.

Reported are the state and load of the machine, counters, enabled features and errors that occurred — no pictures.

Remote access to the interface#

The photobooth interface can be opened remotely in a browser — even when the booth sits in a restaurant's Wi-Fi or behind a mobile router. Neither a VPN nor port forwarding is needed.

This helps when something has to be adjusted during an event without driving there: swapping a layout, checking the printer, resetting a counter.

Requirement#

Remote access is not set up on the photobooth but where it reports its state: in the management portal or in the backend of your own web server. A dedicated address is created there for each device. The software picks it up the next time it reports in.

Only the main switch stays on the photobooth (admin area "Remote management" > "Remote access to the interface"). Without it no connection can be opened.

In everyday use#

The connection is not open permanently. It is opened one session at a time and closes by itself after the configured time — four hours by default. It can be opened on the photobooth or remotely; the badge in the section header shows while something is open.

When opening remotely, allow for one reporting interval: the software only picks the command up the next time it reports in.

Access from the network#

Once the photo booth is on a network, every other device there reaches it through its address in a browser — a tablet, a phone, the laptop at the next table. This section decides what those devices are allowed to use (admin area "Remote management" > "Access from the network").

Out of the box only the gallery for external devices gets through from the network. The operating interface and the admin area stay reserved for the photo booth screen until they are released here.

The four areas#

The gallery has no switch of its own in this section — it is switched on and off where it belongs (admin area "Gallery" > "Gallery on external device"). All that appears here is how it currently stands.

The top-up station shows only the page for topping up credit — for a tablet at the entrance, see Setting up pay-per-use.

The addresses#

Below the switches stand the complete addresses under which the photo booth is currently reachable — with IP address and port, ready to be typed into the browser of the other device. They appear for a blocked area as well, so it is clear what to enter once it is released.

Several addresses mean the computer has several network cards — usually LAN and Wi-Fi. The right one comes from the network the other device is on.

With the encrypted connection switched on, each area also shows an https address with its own port. Only over that one does the tablet offer the device's share menu.

The photo booth port#

The number after the colon in the address is the port. It is 8000 by default. If another program on the same computer occupies that number, the photo booth does not start — it never even reaches its own screen. For that case the number can be changed in the "Photo booth port" field. Allowed values are 1024 to 65535.

The change takes effect after the next start of the software. While the photo booth is still running on the old number, a note below the field says so. After that the new number applies everywhere: in the addresses above, for devices on the network, for the gallery on an external device and for the slideshow on a second monitor.

The Windows firewall is not an issue here: its permission is granted for the program at first start, not for a single port number — it then applies to every port the photo booth uses. Only a hand-made rule for port 8000, or the permission of another firewall, would have to be adjusted.

When the port is in use at startup#

The admin area is no help in that case: it is part of the photo booth and only reachable once it runs. So the software asks during startup instead. If the port is in use, it looks for a free number nearby and offers it in a dialog:

• Yes — the photo booth starts on the new number right away and remembers it. Nothing else is needed; the admin area then shows the new number in the field.
• No — startup is cancelled, with the familiar notice about the occupied port.

The network PIN#

A released area can additionally be put behind a PIN. The "Require PIN" box sits at each of the three areas separately — so the gallery stays open for guests while the operating interface sits behind it.

The network PIN is separate from the admin PIN. Handing it to the attendant does not hand over the admin access: behind the network PIN the admin area still asks for its own.

Four to twelve digits. As long as none is stored the boxes have no effect — a barrier without a key would be a lock nobody can open again.

A device calling up a protected area gets an input mask in the language set on the photo booth and is then unlocked for twelve hours. After a restart of the photo booth it asks again; likewise as soon as the PIN is changed or removed.

After five wrong entries in a row the prompt pauses for a minute, and twice as long on every further attempt. Counting happens per device.

When to release#

Releasing the operating interface makes sense when a second screen is to operate the booth — a tablet at the attendant's place, for instance. Releasing the admin area pays off when things are adjusted from a laptop during the event, without standing in front of the booth.

After five wrong PIN entries in a row the login pauses for a minute, and twice as long on every further attempt. Counting happens per device; the correct PIN resets the counter.

What a blocked device sees#

Calling up something blocked from another device brings up a page in the language set on the photo booth. It names the area concerned and points out that the administering person can release it — not an error message that looks like a defect.

None of this changes anything on the photo booth screen itself, and remote access through the portal still leads into the admin area.

Licence management#

Shows licence type, remaining term, issue date and the time of the last synchronisation. This is where a key is activated and, before a device change, released again.

The licence has to sync with the licence server at least once every 180 days; with an internet connection this happens automatically. "Next sync due by" shows the date. From 30 days before, the start screen points this out at every program start; after that, no new sessions can be started until the next sync. This does not apply to the trial version.

Backup and restore#

A backup covers the whole device's setup — all events with their layouts, graphics and settings, plus the accounts and the counters. It is the fallback for a device change or a failure.

Captures stay out of it: session folders and gallery do not go into the file. A backup is therefore small and written within seconds. For the images there are "Export event captures", the event package and the session folder.

Restoring keeps existing captures, including those of events missing from the backup — their images then appear under "Captures of deleted events".

Backup and restore run in the background and show a progress bar; the admin area stays usable meanwhile.

To hand a single event to a customer or a second booth, the event package is the right way, see Managing events — it contains no credentials.

System#

Restart and quit the software, restart and shut down the machine, plus:

• Check configuration — looks for missing or invalid fields and repairs them. Helps when something stops working after an update.
• Clear UI cache — clears the browser cache of the kiosk mode so changes become visible immediately.
• Edge swipe gestures — switch them off so that a swipe from the screen edge does not open Windows.
• Debug console — for troubleshooting; the application should run in windowed mode for it.