Hi everyone. I’m the creator of the NFL / MLB / NHL / NBA / MLS / NCAAF Scores apps, and with the latest version of the apps, I’ve built in some nifty ways to “slow” the speed of the scores down.
Background: Tidbyt cycles through apps every 15 seconds. So when I originally built the apps to cycle through all the scores, it did so within that 15 second timeframe, which meant approximately 1 second per game if there were 15 games that day for a given league. That makes it very hard to consume each score.
Workaround: I built in some settings to split the scores between app “instances” so it shows fewer games in that 15 second timeframe, meaning each game stays on the screen longer.
Example: Let’s say you are using the NFL Scores app, and there are 16 games to cycles through. You can install the app 4 times on your Tidbyt and make it so games 1-4 show on the first instance, games 5-9 on the second, and so on. This makes it so it takes 1 minute to go through all the games rather than 15 seconds, so each game will stay on the screen for closer to 4 seconds, rather than jamming all 16 games into 15 seconds.
How To Implement: Let’s stick with the NFL Scores app example. You’ll first need to determine how many times you want to add the app. The more app instances you install, the “slower” the scores will cycle through. Let’s say that you want to add it 4 times. When you add the app the first time, select “4” under the “Total Instances of App” setting, and select “First” under the “App Instance Number” setting. Add the app again, and keep the “Total Instances of App” setting at 4, but select “Second” under the “App Instance Number”. Repeat for app instances 3 and 4, only changing the “App Instance Number” to match the instance number you are adding.
So, your home screen would look like this:
And the settings within each app would look like this:
And that should be it! I built in support for up to 8 instances of the app to be installed. I’ve also added in some nifty workarounds for when there are very few games and you have it installed many times. For example, if there’s only 4 games for a given sport that day, and you have the app installed 8 times, it will skip over app instances 5-8 since all of the games for that sport will fit into the first 4 instances.
Let me know your feedback as I continue to build these apps out!