A slideshow for a gathering

At a celebration of life, a birthday, a reunion — any occasion — the photos on the page can play on a screen in the room: a TV, a laptop, a projector. One at a time, slowly, each with its memory's title and when it was.

Starting it

Open the page, tap ⋯ beside the action row and choose Slideshow. From twelve hours before an occasion starts until it's over, the occasion's card has Play the slideshow too. Only someone on the page can start it; there is no link that plays it for anyone else.

Before it starts you choose:

• Show titles: each memory's title and when, at the foot of the screen (on to begin with).
• Order: As life went, from the earliest memory to the latest, or Shuffled.
• Each photo: 6, 10 or 15 seconds.

It opens with the page's main photo, the name and the years, and goes round again when it reaches the end. Move the mouse or tap the screen for Pause, Previous, Next and Exit slideshow; they fade again after a few seconds. On a keyboard, the space bar pauses, the arrow keys go back and forward, Esc stops and F switches full screen on and off.

What is on the screen, and what stays off

A screen in a hall is seen by everyone in the hall, so the slideshow shows only what the page shows to anyone with its link — the same for everyone who starts it, a manager included:

• memories that are on the page for everyone, and their approved photos;
• never a memory kept for the people on the page, anything still waiting for a manager, a draft kept to yourself or an archived memory;
• never the work of someone who keeps what they add for the people on the page (see Your contributions when a page opens up);
• never the photos under What others remember, videos or recordings.

To keep a photo off the screen, keep its memory for the people on the page — see Keeping a memory for the people on the page only. A screen that is already playing checks the page again every forty minutes, so a change reaches it within the hour: new photos added during the evening join the show, and a memory made for the people on the page leaves it. To take something off the screen at once, press Exit slideshow and then Start again: starting asks the page for what it shows now.

A page kept among its people

If Anyone with the link can read it is off, there is no slideshow: what the page would show a visitor has never been looked over. A manager can switch it on under Settings → Privacy, and goes through what visitors will see first — see Reviewing who can see each memory. If the switch goes off while a slideshow is playing, the screen stops at its next check, within the hour — to stop it at once, press Exit slideshow.

On a TV

• iPhone or iPad: start the slideshow, then open Control Centre, choose Screen Mirroring and pick the TV or Apple TV.
• Android: start the slideshow, then choose Cast (on some phones Smart View or Screen cast) in the quick settings and pick the TV.
• A laptop: connect it to the TV with an HDMI cable and start the slideshow in the browser; Start makes it full screen.

Beyond Their Time has no cast button of its own: the phone's or the computer's own mirroring does the work.

Keeping the screen on

While the slideshow plays, the screen doesn't dim or lock on its own — on a phone, a tablet and in most browsers. For a long evening, plug the device in. If a browser can't keep the screen on, set the computer's display to stay on in its own settings.

The slideshow quietly fetches fresh links to its photos every forty minutes, so it can run through an evening without anyone touching it.