What Publish actually does
Publish is more than save. It triggers a multi-phase pipeline that pushes content to your paired Android devices. Here's the play-by-play.
Introduction
When you click Publish (FI: Julkaise) on a screen or playlist, more happens than just saving the change. The Platform runs a multi-phase pipeline that prepares the content, reorders slides, and pushes the new state to every paired Android device. Understanding what Publish does helps set realistic expectations and explains some of the small delays you might notice.
The publish pipeline
Four phases happen on every Publish:
- Phase 1: Pre-publish merge. The Platform fetches the current server-side state of the screen or playlist and merges your local edits in. This catches any concurrent edits made by other users.
- Phase 2: Flush slide updates. Each slide that has unsaved changes is force-pushed to the server with the `published: true` flag. This ensures every slide reflects exactly what's on screen, not just the one you edited.
- Phase 3: Reorder slides. The full slide order is sent to the server. This handles the case where you've dragged slides into a new order; the server now knows the canonical sequence.
- Phase 4: Device resync. The server tells every paired Android device to fetch the latest content. Two resync calls are issued: an immediate one and a delayed second one to catch devices that might have momentarily lost connection.
Tip
If a publish seems to hang, the most common cause is a slow network connection. Try refreshing the page and retrying. If it still hangs, the underlying issue is usually a network or browser problem, not a Platform issue.
What you see in the UI
While the pipeline runs:
- The Publish button shows Publishing… (FI: Julkaistaan…) for the duration.
- The Platform may show a dialog: "Publishing… Sending changes to the screen. This usually takes a few seconds." (FI: "Julkaistaan… Lähetetään muutokset näytölle. Tämä kestää yleensä muutaman sekunnin.")
- When complete, a success toast confirms: "Content publish complete!" (FI: "Sisällön julkaisu valmis!").
Why it takes 5-30 seconds on screens
Even after the Platform reports success:
- The Platform's response only confirms that the server has received the new state.
- Devices receive a resync notification and fetch the new content. This download time depends on file sizes and network speed.
- Devices then validate the new content against their local cache and swap to the new playlist.
- Total time from click to on-screen change: typically 5-30 seconds. Larger files (videos) take longer.
What can fail and how to recover
Most failures are recoverable:
- Pre-publish merge conflicts: rare. If the server detects another user edited the same content, the Platform shows an error and prompts you to refresh and retry.
- Network blip during publish: the Platform retries automatically. If publish completes but devices don't update, click Resync (FI: Synkronoi uudelleen) on the screen to manually trigger a fresh device sync.
- Device offline at publish time: the new content queues for the device. When the device reconnects, it picks up the latest state automatically.
Summary
Publish runs a 4-phase pipeline: merge, flush, reorder, resync. Total time to on-screen change is typically 5-30 seconds. The pipeline handles concurrent edits, network blips, and offline devices gracefully.
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