Kiosk Setup
 

Hi !!!!!
Tyring to setup a Kiosk system with SuSe 9.1 most of the work is done !!!
with the start up placed in the rc4.d and starting of the X session and loading of the browser in full screen using firefox extension to load the browser in full screen!!!!
just would like to know how can i setup the browser to come back to the homepage
after every two minutes if there is no activity ..
pointers or help of anysort will be appreciated
thanx and take care

use a script that checks if somebody is working (check mouse/keyboard-interrupts). maybe use a cronjob for this. if there's no happening, execute the firefox --remote openurl thing (read the manpage or mozilla homepage).

sl mritch.

reply to post
 

I know how to fire up Firefox with the command line and start it full screen but i am just not sure
how i will check for the keyboard and mouse interrupts and write it all in the script ..to have it working.
and also is there a simpler approach to this like a browser with the kiosk preference
as for the fullscreen of the browser i have downloaded an extension which allows me open it in fullscreen

I have internet kiosks set up with Suse9.1. I call up firefox like this at start up.

while true ; do
path to firefox command
done

I got the idea from one of the kiosk projects. Whenever someone closes firefox it comes starts back up to the home page. I started using the kiosk full screen but I like my set up better. I use fluxbox and removed the window handlers except for the close button. It works well in my situation, but I like the idea of redirect to the home page with no keyboard activity. However when people are done browsing the web they like to close the browser, so a majority of the time the home page is displayed. I don't know if this is a better way but I thought I would suggest it.

I set up a kiosk application for a retail customer service desk and encountered the same problem.

If you are using a browser, you can easily use a JavaScript to set a timeout on any/all pages and automatically return to the start page that you set when the timeout expires. This was a very simple solution to get the result you're looking for.

you can find the nr. of irq's in /proc/interrupts. keyboard will likely be irq #1 and a ps2 mouse will be #12. cat them and compare them, let's say every 5 minutes.

oversimplified:

new_value=`cat /proc/interrupts | grep keyboard | awk '{print $2}'`
if [ "$old_value" -eq "$new_value" ]; then
firefox --display=localhost:0 --remote openurl
else
export old_value=$new_value
fi

-------
i don't know of such a bowser extension.

-------
*untested*
a (maybe) simplier aproach to this (no need to write a script) could be using a tool called "sleepd". it's actually made for putting a laptop to sleep, but the command hat would normaly put it to sleep can be specified in any way you want.
it watches the interrupts you tell it and when they are idle long enough you could start the remote firefox command.
*untested*

sl mritch.

Solution for reloading the browser to homepage
 

hello everyone thank you all for ur help i could finally get the code working for thank mritch ur help was valuable here is my code:-


# storing the old keyboard value
old_keyboardvalue=$(cat /proc/interrupts | grep i8042 | awk '{print $2}')

# storing the old mouse value
old_mousevalue=$(cat /proc/interrupts | grep 10: | awk '{print $2}')

export DISPLAY=:0

# message to display to warn the user
xmessage -center "If you leave the workstation for more than 2min it will return back to homepage and all work will be lost"

# and infinite loop
while true
do
sleep 16

#storing the new keyboard and mouse value after a sleep of 10 secs
new_keyboardvalue=$(cat /proc/interrupts | grep i8042 | awk '{print $2}')
new_mousevalue=$(cat /proc/interrupts | grep 10: | awk '{print $2}')

# if block to check if the values has changed after 20 secs
if [ "$old_keyboardvalue" = "$new_keyboardvalue" -a "$old_mousevalue" = "$new_mousevalue" ]
then
xmessage -center "The workstation will return back to homepage"
# reload the browser after giving the message
/usr/bin/firefox -remote "openurl(http://learningcommons.senecacollege.ca)" &
else
old_keyboardvalue="$new_keyboardvalue"
old_mousevalue="$new_mousevalue"
fi
done

thank you once again for all ur help