Kweb Suite (Minimal Kiosk Browser, omxplayerGUI)

[gkreidl]

gkriedl, I remember that in the Makefiles for some older versions of kweb, there was a commented out target that used webkit2. Do you happen to have that source around, even if it didn't work?

I'm interested in running kweb on a system other than Raspbian where a much newer verion of webkitgtk seems to be working fine. Any head start towards getting kweb working with the newer webkit API would be appreciated (and I'd happy provide back any changes I make).

Unfortunately most of the API calls, methods and events which I use for kweb's special features are either missing or have changed dramatically in webkit2. But I'm still planning to create a kweb browser based on webkit2 (libwebkit2gtk-4.0).

[Belph]

Okay, before I started the installation I checked which release of debian I have with

Code: Select all

lsb_release -a

which gave

Code: Select all

Codename: stretch

as result. Then I used the commands at the stretch step, I entered them one by one and didn't get an error:

Code: Select all

wget http://steinerdatenbank.de/software/kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
tar -xzf kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
cd kweb-1.7.9.8
./debinstall

Now I have "omxplayerGUI" available at "Sounds & Video" but if I click it I just get a little loading symbol and nothing happens, I also tried to right-click files and open them with "omxplayerGUI" and I even tried to open it with "Minimal Kiosk Browser". Nothing worked.

I was able to access youtube with the Kiosk Browser so I think that one is working.

[gkreidl]

Okay, before I started the installation I checked which release of debian I have with

Code: Select all

lsb_release -a

which gave

Code: Select all

Codename: stretch

as result. Then I used the commands at the stretch step, I entered them one by one and didn't get an error:

Code: Select all

wget http://steinerdatenbank.de/software/kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
tar -xzf kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
cd kweb-1.7.9.8
./debinstall

Now I have "omxplayerGUI" available at "Sounds & Video" but if I click it I just get a little loading symbol and nothing happens, I also tried to right-click files and open them with "omxplayerGUI" and I even tried to open it with "Minimal Kiosk Browser". Nothing worked.

I was able to access youtube with the Kiosk Browser so I think that one is working.

From your other post I know that you started with Raspbian lite. Perhaps there is something missing. Run from a terminal:
omxplayergui
and watch the report.

[Belph]

Okay, before I started the installation I checked which release of debian I have with

Code: Select all

lsb_release -a

which gave

Code: Select all

Codename: stretch

as result. Then I used the commands at the stretch step, I entered them one by one and didn't get an error:

Code: Select all

wget http://steinerdatenbank.de/software/kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
tar -xzf kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
cd kweb-1.7.9.8
./debinstall

Now I have "omxplayerGUI" available at "Sounds & Video" but if I click it I just get a little loading symbol and nothing happens, I also tried to right-click files and open them with "omxplayerGUI" and I even tried to open it with "Minimal Kiosk Browser". Nothing worked.

I was able to access youtube with the Kiosk Browser so I think that one is working.

From your other post I know that you started with Raspbian lite. Perhaps there is something missing. Run from a terminal:
omxplayergui
and watch the report.

Code: Select all

[email protected]:~ $ omxplayergui
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/pi/kweb/kweb-1.7.9.8-dev/omxplayerguibin/omxplayergui.py", line 19, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk/tkFileDialog.py", line 43, in <module>
    from tkCommonDialog import Dialog
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk/tkCommonDialog.py", line 11, in <module>
    from Tkinter import *
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk/Tkinter.py", line 42, in <module>
    raise ImportError, str(msg) + ', please install the python-tk package'
ImportError: No module named _tkinter, please install the python-tk package

Was the output. I installed python-tk with

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install python-tk

and now the app is starting! Thank you so much!

EDIT: I am still not able to watch the files I wanted to watch, it's opening for a second and just closing again. I tested it with a MP4 file I just download and it work but my MKV files not seem to work.

The working MP4: https://imgur.com/htIZtDV

The NOT working MKV: https://imgur.com/kqZ5aSv

[johndavies]

My technical knowledge is limited but I think you will find that that the Raspberry Pi and omxplayergui will not play H265 video.

[fruitoftheloom]

Okay, before I started the installation I checked which release of debian I have with

Code: Select all

lsb_release -a

which gave

Code: Select all

Codename: stretch

as result. Then I used the commands at the stretch step, I entered them one by one and didn't get an error:

Code: Select all

wget http://steinerdatenbank.de/software/kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
tar -xzf kweb-1.7.9.8.tar.gz
cd kweb-1.7.9.8
./debinstall

Now I have "omxplayerGUI" available at "Sounds & Video" but if I click it I just get a little loading symbol and nothing happens, I also tried to right-click files and open them with "omxplayerGUI" and I even tried to open it with "Minimal Kiosk Browser". Nothing worked.

I was able to access youtube with the Kiosk Browser so I think that one is working.

From your other post I know that you started with Raspbian lite. Perhaps there is something missing. Run from a terminal:
omxplayergui
and watch the report.

Code: Select all

[email protected]:~ $ omxplayergui
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/pi/kweb/kweb-1.7.9.8-dev/omxplayerguibin/omxplayergui.py", line 19, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk/tkFileDialog.py", line 43, in <module>
    from tkCommonDialog import Dialog
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk/tkCommonDialog.py", line 11, in <module>
    from Tkinter import *
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-tk/Tkinter.py", line 42, in <module>
    raise ImportError, str(msg) + ', please install the python-tk package'
ImportError: No module named _tkinter, please install the python-tk package

Was the output. I installed python-tk with

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install python-tk

and now the app is starting! Thank you so much!

EDIT: I am still not able to watch the files I wanted to watch, it's opening for a second and just closing again. I tested it with a MP4 file I just download and it work but my MKV files not seem to work.

The working MP4: https://imgur.com/htIZtDV

The NOT working MKV: https://imgur.com/kqZ5aSv

http://open-media-community.com/2017/01 ... erry-pi-3/

[hansotten]

The 'solution' just posted by Fruitoftheloom, pavtube, is quite expensive.

Have a look at Handbrake https://handbrake.fr/ for a competent crossplatform free option to convert h.265 to h.264

[gkreidl]

omxplayer(GUI) cannot play H265 encoded files.
Latest kodi version can, but not 1080p.

[Belph]

The 'solution' just posted by Fruitoftheloom, pavtube, is quite expensive.

Have a look at Handbrake https://handbrake.fr/ for a competent crossplatform free option to convert h.265 to h.264

What settings would you recommend for a PI 3 model B?

I currently couldn't even play the 480p30 video I just converted from h.265 to h.264 dunno if I selected something wrong. I tried to convert it to both mp4 and mkv

I now tried several different presets in handbrake but none so far were able to get played in omxplayergui on my raspberry pi 3 model b. Any idea why?

[POPEYE]

Where from does it take path to youtube-dl?

[Belph]

I now have several files which all work in VLC player on my PI 3 as long as I don't go into fullscreen mode but NONE of them work in omxplayergui. they're all 480p30 two of them are .mp4 container the other one is .mkv all of them are h.264

SOLUTION!: I actually just installed used "sudo apt-get install omxplayer" to see if something is missing and YES it worked

[gkreidl]

Where from does it take path to youtube-dl?

There's more than one answer.

For use by omxplayerGUI:
Basically a working binary or link to an installed full Python version of youtube-dl is required in either /usr/bin or /usr/local bin.
A standard version downloaded from the youtube-dl website and installed into either directory will work, but is quite slow (see timings below).

To use the youtube-dl-server and to get better performance a full youtube-dl Python version has to be installed.
On Jessie by default git is used to install youtube-dl in your home folder and a symbolic link to it is created in /usr/bin.
On Stretch pip is used to install youtube-dl. This installation creates a symbolic link in /usr/local/bin.

Both versions are supported on Jessie and Stretch. The youtube-dl version in your home directory has the disadvantage that it won't revive a user change, but unfortunately pip on Jessie has been broken for a long time. But you can safely install the Stretch versions manually on Jessie and it will work again.

kweb itself works with any variant. If you want to add the same functionality (watch web video with omxplayerGUI) to Chromium, Firefox or Midory, you'll need the youtube-dl server.

In the kweb suite, youtube-dl is used to extract the name and real address of web video from a website. How long that takes, depends significantly on the installation method. Here are the timings on a RPi 3 for all solutions on Jessie and Stretch (where everything runs a bit slower):

Fake-Binary (all in one, contains a zip with all modules as text: .py)
time ./youtube-dl -f best -e -g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX8Li5ks3Kc

Stretch:
real 0m9.331s
user 0m8.400s
sys 0m0.110s
Jessie
real 0m8.085s
user 0m7.200s
sys 0m0.110s

git or pip installation (using pyc modules)
time youtube-dl -f best -e -g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX8Li5ks3Kc

Stretch:
real 0m5.712s
user 0m4.790s
sys 0m0.150s

Jessie:
real 0m4.650s
user 0m3.780s
sys 0m0.160s

Using the youtube-dl server
time wget -q -O - http://127.0.0.1:9192/info?url=https:// ... X8Li5ks3Kc

Stretch:
real 0m1.663s
user 0m0.010s
sys 0m0.000s

Jessie:
real 0m1.351s
user 0m0.010s
sys 0m0.000s

[POPEYE]

gkreidl
Thank you for the answer.

If I want to update the youtube-dl version, which is installed by Kweb to the home folder from the command line which command should I use? Should it be update-ytdl?

And another question: Can I use omxplayergui without a mouse? I've searched PDF manual, but haven't found answer to this question. Standard methods, such as hitting "tab" key seems not working (I' am using IceWm window manager).

[gkreidl]

gkreidl
Thank you for the answer.
If I want to update the youtube-dl version, which is installed by Kweb to the home folder from the command line which command should I use? Should it be update-ytdl?

yes

And another question: Can I use omxplayergui without a mouse? I've searched PDF manual, but haven't found answer to this question. Standard methods, such as hitting "tab" key seems not working (I' am using IceWm window manager).

Check both sets of keyboard shortcuts.

[gde061]

Has anyone had success (or know if it's possible) to get kweb running on a non- pi machine?

I tried to make from source on an RPM Fedora 12 system and thought I had success, but it won't run.

I am very interested in getting a tool like Kweb set up on some salvage PC's I use for teaching running an assortment of linux distros. These are old machines that can still hold their own for teaching how to program... in a program where many of the kids have pi's at home but the school don't have a budget for newer monitors that can connect with HDMI (or a second set of Pi's) and relies on donated laptops. Getting a browser like Kweb to run on them would be AWESOME! (I might make the kids read the manual anyway, since it really gets at something they fail to grasp about how big sites are coded with indifference to resources).

I found a github page, but I'm not sure if it's active -- most files are 4 years old and there hasn't been activity for 6+ months.

I apologize if this was asked alread... a simple search of this thread didn't turn up anything for "i86", "RPM" or "DEB".

[gkreidl]

Has anyone had success (or know if it's possible) to get kweb running on a non- pi machine?

I tried to make from source on an RPM Fedora 12 system and thought I had success, but it won't run.

I am very interested in getting a tool like Kweb set up on some salvage PC's I use for teaching running an assortment of linux distros. These are old machines that can still hold their own for teaching how to program... in a program where many of the kids have pi's at home but the school don't have a budget for newer monitors that can connect with HDMI (or a second set of Pi's) and relies on donated laptops. Getting a browser like Kweb to run on them would be AWESOME! (I might make the kids read the manual anyway, since it really gets at something they fail to grasp about how big sites are coded with indifference to resources).

I found a github page, but I'm not sure if it's active -- most files are 4 years old and there hasn't been activity for 6+ months.

I apologize if this was asked alread... a simple search of this thread didn't turn up anything for "i86", "RPM" or "DEB".

There is no version for x86 and I don't think it's worth the effort to create one. There are quite a lot of specialties which have been created for the RPi only. And the kweb suite depends on things like omxplayer.

Usually I offer the complete sources in a separate download but the two latest versions (Jessie, Stretch) are still missing - I was simply too busy updating all my applications for Stretch. But I'll bring them online this week.
The github version was published without my knowledge and without asking me and is very old.

[gde061]

...
There is no version for x86 and I don't think it's worth the effort to create one. There are quite a lot of specialties which have been created for the RPi only. And the kweb suite depends on things like omxplayer.

Usually I offer the complete sources in a separate download but the two latest versions (Jessie, Stretch) are still missing - I was simply too busy updating all my applications for Stretch. But I'll bring them online this week.
The github version was published without my knowledge and without asking me and is very old.

It's a great tool, I know there are some other lightweight tools for x86. The source build tried to build was on 1.6.9... the problem was in fact omxplayer I think. I don't know enough about the Pi dependencies to attempt to disconnect the media playback stuff that depends on OMXplayer. Even as a media-deprived browser, I would think it could be a good addition for some things like browsing through text programming syntax references efficiently without all the distraction. Kids are being conditioned to look for (and copy) the video / multimedia tutorial, and not read + think... not great IMHO.

[hosereh]

I have been writing a home-automation type gui and I'm having problems with GTK+3. I had it all working fine on GTK+2 when I was running Jesse on the Pi3. GTK+3 on Jesse never rendered the site part one tiny SVG. Fast forward a month and I've been running Chromium on the Pi without any issues. The site works fine in Chrome and Chromiium on Ubunu on my laptop and also on Windows. I decided to do a scratch installation of Stretch on a new card for the Pi and now I only have GTK+3 with kweb, so I'm stuck not being able to use kweb.

The only troubleshooting I can come up with is what pops up on the console on the Pi. It seems to be having problems with my JS files (everything is served locally). Do you have any advice for troubleshooting this? I would really like to run kweb long-term instead of Chromium, but kweb3 has never worked right for this site. It does seem to work fine for just about everything on the internet I've tried. And the old kweb worked fine with my site. Help?!?!?

[hosereh]

I've been writing a javascript-heavy site for a home automation setup. It ran in kweb on Jesse, but it will not load the JS stuff correctly on kweb3 on Jesse or on straight up kweb on Stretch (same thing, no?). The only info from the console is the first message from the first JS file (undefined is not a function), but even when I start commenting things out to isolate it just has problems with ever single JS file. I have eveything enabled in the browser, yes.

How can I go about troubleshooting this?

[gkreidl]

On Jessie (and Wheezy) there was a but difference in both webkit engines: The GTK+2 one used the default version from Raspbian. The GTK+3 version was newer and contained a lot of patches for the RPi (GPU support, JIT JS compiler).

On Stretch there is no real difference. Both are default versions from Raspbian. I decided for GTK+3, because of the more modern interface, but might revert this again, because the pepperflash wrapper only works for GTK+2.

But there should be no difference in JS execution. The old webkit development has come to an end. Some time in the future I might switch to webkit-2, but this requires a complete rewrite of the browser.

[playdoh]

Hello,

I am trying to setup my RPI3 (Stretch) to work as a signage device that can be remotely updated and that the status can be monitored. I have some HTML running my index.html along with a video layered on top that i am calling through an iframe (m3u file with a custom position based on the layout). The video is running smoothly along with the html in the background but I would like to monitor the video player and control it after having opened it. I am having a hard time understanding the best way to get my nodejs server to monitor the omxplayergui to check for events and status. I would like to know when the video ends (I have --loop as a setting in the m3u file) or if an error occurs. This is very important as without this, we are blind to know wether the player is indeed still running. I have looked up node modules but they are all for omxplayer and that will not work when giving it an m3u file.

[gkreidl]

Hello,

I am trying to setup my RPI3 (Stretch) to work as a signage device that can be remotely updated and that the status can be monitored. I have some HTML running my index.html along with a video layered on top that i am calling through an iframe (m3u file with a custom position based on the layout). The video is running smoothly along with the html in the background but I would like to monitor the video player and control it after having opened it. I am having a hard time understanding the best way to get my nodejs server to monitor the omxplayergui to check for events and status. I would like to know when the video ends (I have --loop as a setting in the m3u file) or if an error occurs. This is very important as without this, we are blind to know wether the player is indeed still running. I have looked up node modules but they are all for omxplayer and that will not work when giving it an m3u file.

I would use the youtube-dl-server. It offers a complete set of dbus commands to control or monitor the omxplayer instance.

[playdoh]

Thank you for the quick reply. All the files are locally stored. I though the youtube-dl was only for web videos. You can use it for local videos as well?

[gkreidl]

Thank you for the quick reply. All the files are locally stored. I though the youtube-dl was only for web videos. You can use it for local videos as well?

Yes, and it supports dbus commands to control or monitor the player,

[Lavsmaster]

Hello.
I'm doing a project on Raspberry3 Stretch.
To autostart KWeb I use the code:

kweb -KFJHCUA+-zbhrqfpoklgtjeduwxy /home/pi/myprog/index.html &

To run the Bash script from the Html page I use the code:

<a href="file:///homepage.html?cmd=/home/pi/myprog/driver/./on2.sh">On</a>

The script is executed (I light the LED) all ok.
But at the moment of execution of the script in the foreground for a moment the white or black terminal window opens and then disappears.
It's not beautiful, how to fix it?