A CLI app and HTTP API to remotely control Chromium or Midori running in a kiosk mode.
Originally built for opening dashboards on TV-connected Raspberry Pis.
NOTE: Since starting Chromium spawns multiple processes (and possibily stops the initial one stored in shell variable $!), I was unable to find a reliable way to target a single window/tab. As a result, kiosk terminates all chromium processes before creating a new one when (re)starting.
NOTE: This app assumes that the X Server is running on display :0, which allows the CLI to open the browser correctly in a console and over SSH.
Kiosk Controller requires: chromium-browser, midori, and python3. Running any ./kiosk command will let you know if they are missing.
Run ./kiosk help for a list of available commands.
By default, kiosk will start an HTTP API. A HTTP header of 'kiosk-auth' will be needed if you set an API password using the CLI.
GET / - Current status
Returns the plain text of the currently set page.
POST / - Temporarily change page
If a HTTP header kiosk-page is specified, the page will be temporarily changed and the browser will restart.
Otherwise, the browser will restart with the default page.
PUT / - Permanently change page
If a HTTP header kiosk-page is specified, the page will be saved as the new default and the browser will restart.
Otherwise, if no page is specified, an HTTP 400 is returned.
##Todo
- Code review
##Ideas
- An iframe + sockets based page could get around the chromium control issues. The CLI could hook into a server sending messages to the client to switch the page, reload it, etc.