Kweb Suite (Minimal Kiosk Browser, omxplayerGUI)

[gkreidl]

is video lan missing from this newer version ?

????

[TGD]

Hi gkreidl,

I’ve installed kweb-1.7.0 on my PiZero yesterday. It runs very smoothly there, but I have some issues:

1. I am using the file:// protocol to browse a mounted network share with kweb/3. What kind of sort/order is kweb using to display the files. They aren’t sort neither by name, size nor date. Is it possible to adjust the order?
   
   Here is a picture as an example:

   

   kweb file:// list

   KWEB.JPG (56.57 KiB) Viewed 5066 times

   I would like to have an alphabetical order by name (like the ls command):

   Code: Select all

   pi@RPi01:~ $ ls -la
   total 2596
   drwxr-xr-x 11 pi   pi      4096 Apr 21 12:58 .
   drwxr-xr-x  3 root root    4096 Feb 26 02:04 ..
   -rw-------  1 pi   pi      4401 Apr 21 12:35 .bash_history
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi       220 Feb 26 02:04 .bash_logout
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi      3512 Feb 26 02:04 .bashrc
   drwx------  7 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 13:53 .cache
   drwx------  5 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 15:11 .config
   drwx------  3 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 10:50 .dbus
   drwxr-xr-x  2 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 13:53 Desktop
   drwxr-xr-x  2 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 14:11 Downloads
   -rwxr-xr-x  1 pi   pi        31 Apr 21 13:04 kiosk
   -rwxr-xr-x  1 root root      92 Apr 20 15:07 ktop
   drwxr-xr-x  2 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 09:34 kweb-1.7.0
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi   2557021 Apr 20 09:33 kweb-1.7.0.tar.gz
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi     10995 Apr 20 15:32 kweb_about_c.html
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi        52 Apr 20 15:32 .kweb.conf
   drwxr-xr-x  3 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 11:00 .local
   drwx------  4 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 13:53 .mozilla
   -rw-------  1 pi   pi        34 Apr 21 13:04 .nano_history
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi       675 Feb 26 02:04 .profile
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi        46 Apr 20 10:37 URL
   -rw-r--r--  1 pi   pi         0 Apr 21 12:56 .web_cookie_jar
   drwxr-xr-x  9 pi   pi      4096 Apr 20 10:07 youtube-dl
   

2. Is it possible to use a customized screen resolution as 1280x1024?

Regards
TGD

[gkreidl]

@TGD:
I know this problem and I've searched a lot in the webkitgtk documentation to find a solution. This function (displaying a directory) is an undocumented feature of the webkit engine and I have found no way to change its behavior. It would be really useful to have an alphabetical order or even define a sorting order. Possibly one of the webkit developers introduced the directory view some time ago and simply forgot about it.

[TGD]

@TGD:
I know this problem and I've searched a lot in the webkitgtk documentation to find a solution. This function (displaying a directory) is an undocumented feature of the webkit engine and I have found no way to change its behavior. It would be really useful to have an alphabetical order or even define a sorting order. Possibly one of the webkit developers introduced the directory view some time ago and simply forgot about it.

Okay, so we'll have to wait until this is fixed/enhanced in the webkit sources. But what about the second issue with a different screen resolution?

[gkreidl]

....But what about the second issue with a different screen resolution?

There are 11 different default window sizes, which are used if "maximized" is disabled. I had to remove 1280x1024 to support the RPi touch display resolution.
If you use a 1280x1024 monitor the browser will fill the whole are using the default "maximize" setting. The fixed settings are needed when running a kiosk application without a window manager (which is required for the maximize command).

[hphuhtin]

Hello!
using kweb3 1.7.0 on Raspberry 3 and Jessie it works very well in kiosk mode. There is something I am curious about though - I can't find much information on the different cache models.

Document Viewer Model, no Cache (U) - this is quite obvious. But then we have Web Browser Cache Model and Document Browser Cache Model, and their difference escapes me. They are quite briefly mentioned in the manual, so I experimented and noticed that our digital signage solution seems to cache it's content only with the Document Browser Cache Model. Maybe something to do with caching objects instead of files?

A few words on the difference of these caching models would be helpful for someone as ignorant as I am Thank you for providing kweb!

[gkreidl]

Hello!
using kweb3 1.7.0 on Raspberry 3 and Jessie it works very well in kiosk mode. There is something I am curious about though - I can't find much information on the different cache models.

Document Viewer Model, no Cache (U) - this is quite obvious. But then we have Web Browser Cache Model and Document Browser Cache Model, and their difference escapes me. They are quite briefly mentioned in the manual, so I experimented and noticed that our digital signage solution seems to cache it's content only with the Document Browser Cache Model. Maybe something to do with caching objects instead of files?

A few words on the difference of these caching models would be helpful for someone as ignorant as I am Thank you for providing kweb!

That's all I know about it: http://webkitgtk.org/reference/webkitgt ... CacheModel

[hphuhtin]

That's all I know about it: http://webkitgtk.org/reference/webkitgt ... CacheModel

Thank you for your reply, now I understand this comes directly from webkit. I'm not a developer really, but went and looked at the source. I can't find much difference aside from the different resources reserverd except that the web_browser cache model defines a 60 second expiration interval for "deadDecodedData", so maybe that is what makes the document_browser model work better in our use case.

(WebKit2/Shared/CacheModel.cpp:140: deadDecodedDataDeletionInterval = std::chrono::seconds { 60 };)

[gkreidl]

That's all I know about it: http://webkitgtk.org/reference/webkitgt ... CacheModel

Thank you for your reply, now I understand this comes directly from webkit. I'm not a developer really, but went and looked at the source. I can't find much difference aside from the different resources reserverd except that the web_browser cache model defines a 60 second expiration interval for "deadDecodedData", so maybe that is what makes the document_browser model work better in our use case.

(WebKit2/Shared/CacheModel.cpp:140: deadDecodedDataDeletionInterval = std::chrono::seconds { 60 };)

Webkit2 is not used by kweb (and currently seems to be broken on the RPi).
For your digital signage application you might disable private browsing (P option). This will keep the offline cache.

[gkreidl]

This is a small maintenance update.
It fixes a small bug in omxplayerGUI (in fact it is a workaround for a Tkinter bug), adds error skipping on youtube playlists and channels in ytdl_server.py and in all presets and adds an "analogaudio" preset.
You can update it from within kweb (menu page).

It will also be soon available in kusti8's repository. If you are using it (for chromium etc), you can use apt-get update/upgrade for updating.

[odbwilson]

Hi,

I like to port my video/image display project to kweb 1.7.0. with Raspberry Pi 3. But I have no idea if it works.
I used gnome-mplayer + gecko-mediaplayer + Javascript + HTML + Firefox on a video accelerated hardware before.

1) Can kweb play high bit rate Full HD video with hardware acceleration? I knew I have to switch the code to HTML5 (no gecko plugin)even if it is ok.

2) Can kweb play Full HD video in any position within the kweb browser with auto-scale capability, like other browsers.

3) Can kweb play portrait video if the screen is rotated by 90 degree?

Many Thanks!

[gkreidl]

Hi,

I like to port my video/image display project to kweb 1.7.0. with Raspberry Pi 3. But I have no idea if it works.
I used gnome-mplayer + gecko-mediaplayer + Javascript + HTML + Firefox on a video accelerated hardware before.

1) Can kweb play high bit rate Full HD video with hardware acceleration? I knew I have to switch the code to HTML5 (no gecko plugin)even if it is ok.

2) Can kweb play Full HD video in any position within the kweb browser with auto-scale capability, like other browsers.

3) Can kweb play portrait video if the screen is rotated by 90 degree?

Many Thanks!

The answer is not simple.
The kweb package contains two browsers:

kweb using the default webkit engine without any HW acceleration. It is rock stable. It can display up to 567p web video on an RPI3 without problems, but no higher resolutions (720p is possible, but not perfect, a few lost frames at least)

kweb3, using the HW accelerated webkit3 engine (same as epiphany). In spite of HW decoding, its efficiency is limited, because the decoded video has to be copied back to the frame buffer in real time. It play 720p video in good quality. But unfortunately the video engine of webkit3/gstreamer has memory leaks and will corrupt memory and sooner or later crash. I have no idea, if this will be fixed in the future. Currently I wouldn't use this engine for a professional application.

kweb's unique application interface gives some more options, but this is limited to local HTML files. You can use something like "simulated web video": it uses omxplayer to play video (local files or internet streams) inside a certain area of the web page. This uses an overlay method and can play up to 1080p60 video in any screen area (up to full screen).
It depends on your application, if you can use it in this way. for more details, check the manual: http://steinerdatenbank.de/software/omx ... manual.pdf

[geecee]

Hello Herr Kreidl,
and the end of installation I got the message
Error during install: 'Failed to fetch http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/rasp ... webkitgtk/
libjavascriptcoregtk-1.0-0_2.4.8-2+rpi1_armhf.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 5.153.225.207 80]
I think there is a change withib Raspian resources. Have you any idea whre I got webkits resources somewhere else?
Thank you in advance
Geecee

[gkreidl]

Hello Herr Kreidl,
and the end of installation I got the message
Error during install: 'Failed to fetch http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/rasp ... webkitgtk/
libjavascriptcoregtk-1.0-0_2.4.8-2+rpi1_armhf.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 5.153.225.207 80]
I think there is a change withib Raspian resources. Have you any idea whre I got webkits resources somewhere else?
Thank you in advance
Geecee

Run
sudo apt-get update
and try to install again. Maybe your sources are not up to date.

[AlbertoDT]

Hello.

I embeded a video streaming in html with an iframe.

Well, kweb shows the streaming well but in a few minutes, the raspberry gets frozen.

I made test and I watched that while the kweb is showing the streaming, the RAM usage from kweb go up in increment of 0,5% per second with no limit.

I am frustrated because I dont now how I can limit the RAM usage or make a loop usage of RAM.

Regards.
Alberto

[gkreidl]

Hello.

I embeded a video streaming in html with an iframe.

Well, kweb shows the streaming well but in a few minutes, the raspberry gets frozen.

I made test and I watched that while the kweb is showing the streaming, the RAM usage from kweb go up in increment of 0,5% per second with no limit.

I am frustrated because I dont now how I can limit the RAM usage or make a loop usage of RAM.

Regards.
Alberto

Can you send me something for testing (via PM)?

[darkeagl]

I have a problem with kweb.
I am running a Node.js server on a Pi 1 B+ on http://localhost:8080/
With epiphany I get the website in kiosk mode without a problem but when I want to run it with kweb or kweb3 -KJ I just get a screen with "Connection refused" and done.
What could be the problem, the waiting time before the browser opens didnt change so Node.js is up and running because from another pc from the same LAN I can open the page the same second the Pi tries to open it with kweb.

Any help appreciated.

[gkreidl]

I have a problem with kweb.
I am running a Node.js server on a Pi 1 B+ on http://localhost:8080/
With epiphany I get the website in kiosk mode without a problem but when I want to run it with kweb or kweb3 -KJ I just get a screen with "Connection refused" and done.
What could be the problem, the waiting time before the browser opens didnt change so Node.js is up and running because from another pc from the same LAN I can open the page the same second the Pi tries to open it with kweb.

Any help appreciated.

Hard for me to tell without being able to test it. How do you start the node.js server and kweb(3)?

[stretch]

I have setup my zero on raspian minimal and installed xorg, lxde and lightdm however I only need this pi to open a url in kiosk mode so do I actually need a window manager or just to install kweb?

[PuppetHoundZ]

The New browser to 1.7.1 is awesome. Nice job. Also the new Youtube Server is a bit visually intrusive but it works really fast and is way more reliable.

Great Job again.

[gkreidl]

I have setup my zero on raspian minimal and installed xorg, lxde and lightdm however I only need this pi to open a url in kiosk mode so do I actually need a window manager or just to install kweb?

XORG must be running. kweb can run without any window manager, but you have to set the exact screen size. You should also disable new windows to be opened. The following options should be included "KAVMNR" and a number for the screen size (if it's not 1920x1080).

[stretch]

I have setup my zero on raspian minimal and installed xorg, lxde and lightdm however I only need this pi to open a url in kiosk mode so do I actually need a window manager or just to install kweb?

XORG must be running. kweb can run without any window manager, but you have to set the exact screen size. You should also disable new windows to be opened. The following options should be included "KAVMNR" and a number for the screen size (if it's not 1920x1080).

Thanks for that i've gone back to minimum and installed xorg, xinit, lxterminal, tint2, xterm, youtube-dl and kweb. When i startx I get a simple terminal window where I enter the kweb options and the page opens. How do I exit kweb while in kiosk mode? how do I boot into X and start kweb automatically?

[gkreidl]

Thanks for that i've gone back to minimum and installed xorg, xinit, lxterminal, tint2, xterm, youtube-dl and kweb. When i startx I get a simple terminal window where I enter the kweb options and the page opens. How do I exit kweb while in kiosk mode? how do I boot into X and start kweb automatically?

You should use a kiosk script and xinit. In your case the kiosk script only contains
kweb -options url
Include at least one keyboard command in the options string: q
Then you can close kweb with ALT+q
You'll find more details in chapter 15 of the manual.

[jdonth]

What is the "N" option? I can't get the browser to display the proper size with in kiosk mode.

[gkreidl]

What is the "N" option? I can't get the browser to display the proper size with in kiosk mode.

I would advise using a simple window manager (matchbox, for example).
If not, you have to use N (no fullscreen), M (don't maximize) and R (don't open new window) options and a predefined size (1920x1080 by default or using the numbers 0-9).