displays:

Config file section

Valid in machine config files	YES
Valid in mode config files	NO

The displays: section of your config is where you configure the logical displays in your machine. A display is used to show slides, and can be an on-screen window or a DMD.

You can have more than one display. For example, if you want to have a DMD and also display an on-screen window, you’ll actually have two displays:, the DMD is one and the on-screen window is the other.

Here’s an example displays: section from Demo Man with two displays:

displays:
  window:
    height: 200
    width: 600
  dmd:
    width: 128
    height: 32
    default: true
    round_anchor_x: left

This example is tested to be valid MPF config. However, it is not integration tested.

displays:
  window:
    height: 200
    width: 600
  dmd:
    width: 128
    height: 32
    default: true
    round_anchor_x: left

In the example above, one of the displays is called window and the other is called dmd. Note that the names here are completely arbitrary. Just naming a display “window” does not make it show up in the window, and naming a display “dmd” doesn’t make it show up in the DMD. (When you configure your window in the window: section of your config, you specify the name of the display you want to be the source for the window content. Same for the DMD.)

The names of the displays are used as “targets” for your slides. So when you show a slide, you specify which display you want it to show on. If you don’t specify a target, it will choose the default. If you only have one display, you never have to worry about this because that display will always be the default. If you have more than one, you can add the default: true to a display here to tell MPF which display is your default which is used when you play slides without specifying a target.

Note

Starting in MPF v0.33, If you do not put a displays: section in your machine config, MPF will automatically create a single display called “default” with a size of 800x600. (This matches the default window size.)

Each display in your displays: section can have the following settings:

Optional settings

The following sections are optional in the displays: section of your config. (If you don’t include them, the default will be used).

default:

Single value, type: boolean (Yes/No or True/False). Default: False

Specifies that this display is the default, meaning it’s the display that’s used if you show a slide without specifying a target for that slide. If you only have one display, it will be the default automatically.

height:

Single value, type: integer. Default: 600

The height if the display, in pixels. Note that if you’re showing this display on the screen, you can scale the screen window which will scale the display. So the height here can be thought of as the “native” height of the display.

round_anchor_x:

Single value, type: string. Default: center

Indicates that this display should not render widgets on fractional horizontal pixels, e.g. anchoring an 11px-wide widget at -5.5 pixels. When specified with left or right, this display will round the pixel position to the nearest whole pixel in that direction.

This setting can also be configured on an individual widget to override the display’s configuration.

round_anchor_y:

Single value, type: string. Default: middle

Indicates that this display should not render widgets on fractional vertical pixels, e.g. anchoring an 11px-high widget at -5.5 pixels. When specified with bottom or top, this display will round the pixel position to the nearest whole pixel in that direction.

This setting can also be configured on an individual widget to override the display’s configuration.

width:

Single value, type: integer. Default: 800

The width of the display, in pixels.