The Viewer version of IdeaLayer Engine can be used on multiple separate PCs, so that content can be flicked to them over your local network. In some cases, where you have multiple displays attached to a single PC running Viewer, you may wish to run multiple separate Viewer instances. This avoids needing a separate PC for every Viewer instance. This is a more advanced setup and requires some configuration changes.
This section outlines those changes, which involves creating a custom Viewer shortcut and having a separate viewer-config.rc file for each instance.
- Go to the Engine configuration folder (C:\ProgramData\IdeaLayer Engine).
- Duplicate the existing viewer-config.rc file, and give it a different name like viewer-config2.rc. You can make as many as you like if you want to run more than 2 instances.
- Edit the new viewer2.rc file, and change the DATAWALL_PORT setting. By default, it will be 9199. Change it to 9200, or something unique.
- Below the DATAWALL_PORT setting is another line with a STREAMED_RESOURCE_FIRST_LISTEN_PORT (set to 10100 by default). Change this to a higher number, but leave at least a 100 port gap between them. So, change it to 10200, 10300, 10400 or similar.
- Next, we need to change the screen that the Viewer window should appear on. At the top of the file, change the FULLSCREEN_MONITOR option to reflect your desired monitor. By default, the normal Viewer mode will go on monitor 2. So, you could change the viewer-config2.rc you are currently editing to be on FULLSCREEN_MONITOR = 1.
- Now we need to change the Viewer shortcut to run both instances. It is recommended that you copy the existing shortcut to make the changes - otherwise you may lose the changes when you install Engine updates.
- Right-click on your newly created shortcut, select Properties, and then select the Shortcut tab. Change the Target field as displayed below, including a list of Viewer configuration files to launch:
You can add multiple Viewer configuration files (.rc files) to that list to make the shortcut run the multiple instances. When they launch, pressing the Escape key on your keyboard will close all of the Viewer instances together.