Pi-Display

This project can be used to display information on a monitor using the chromium web browser. It will rotate through the links/files that you provide. HTML, PDF, JPG, PNG, PDF, MP4 are all supported. The project comes with sample files contained in the files directory.

Installation

Run the command below to install on your Debian system.

git clone https://github.com/km4ack/pi-display.git $HOME/pi-display

Start the application

Use the command below to start the application.

~/pi-display/./pi-display

The script will run in a loop. After all of the files are displayed, chromium closes, reopens, and displays the files again. To exit the script, use ctrl+x in the terminal window where you stated the script.

Add files to display

Two things must be done to add a new file into the rotation. First, place a copy of the file into ~/pi-display/files/ Next, add the file name to the links file. The initial contents of the links file are:

/pota/POTA6.jpg,5
DYK2.jpg,5
test.pdf,5
DYK1.jpg,5
weather.txt,5
radar.png,5
DYK3.jpg,5
news.txt,5
DYK4.jpg,5
test.html,5
https://google.com,5

Each file has to be included on a new line. The line begins with the file name followed by a ",". After the "," a number must be added. This number tells the script how long (in seconds) to display the page for that file. Notice the first line above /pota/POTA6.jpg,5 You will find a pota subdirectory under files.

Remove a file from the display

To remove a file from the display, simply delete the line from the links file. Be sure not to leave blank lines in the links file. Removing the file from the files directory is optional.

Weather-report

This script will help you generate a weather report and output the results as a HTML file that is copied to the pi-display files for display. To run the script, use the following command

~/pi-display/./weather-report

auto-screenshot

This script is included but designed to be run on another computer. Once copied to the other machine and started, it will create a web server and capture screenshot at the interval set (60 second default) in the script. This screenshot can then be pulled into the pi-display. I use it to screen shot an APRS digipeater map than can then be viewed on the pi-display machine.

Kiosk Mode

If you would like to run the browser in Kiosk mode, open the pi-display script in a text editor. Look for this line:

KIOSK=OFF

and change it to

KIOSK=ON