Nov

8

Kiosk Browser Grows Up, Goes Pro

13 years ago, mid-November | 37 Comments


Over the last few days I’ve worked on a new release of Kiosk Browser what I’m calling the SE (Special Edition) for now. I am undecided as to how I’ll distribute and license this and at what cost. I know that some of you are using Android tablets that do not have the Google Market on them. It may be that distribution is just an apk download from my server. I’m not sure many of you would appreciate entering licenses for each kiosk tied to a specific device, so I favour the one off fee, install however many times you want approach. I’ve put a poll at the end of this post, you can vote for the one you like the most or provide alternatives in the comments.

Kiosk Browser SE includes some extra, more advanced features such as

Home Screen

You can make Kiosk Browser SE the device home screen so that when pressing the home screen, or back button the user ends up in Kiosk Browser and not the ‘desktop’. When the device is booted Kiosk Browser SE will automatically start.

Orientation Lock

Kiosk Browser SE can lock the screen in landscape or portrait mode.

Wake Lock

If you don’t want your kiosk to sleep you can force it to stay awake.

Options are,

off: The device will sleep as normal. This may result in loss of network connectivity and the lock screen may appear.

dim: Wake lock that ensures that the screen is on (but may be dimmed); the keyboard backlight will be allowed to go off.

full: Wake lock that ensures that the screen and keyboard are on at full brightness.*

*be aware of screen burn in and panel lifetime.

Idle Timeout

If there’s no input from the user you can jump back to the start url after a number of minutes you specify.

Capture Images

You can automatically capture images from the front camera and/or the screen when the user interacts with Kiosk Browser SE. You can have either image captured or both. If you have both each image filename is stamped with the same time. You can tag your kiosk files with a specific identity to help keep files unique. Useful if multiple kiosks are uploading to the same space.

Upload Images

Captured images can be FTP’d to a server, once complete they are removed from local storage to free up space. The target FTP path can also be specified.

Remote Load

Sometimes it may be useful to load a new configuration from a remote server. On boot Kiosk Browser SE will check for a local configuration file and then optionally a remote one. The local configuration file can be automatically deleted once loaded so can be used for initial provisioning. Settings are saved internally so after configuration updates the kiosk can operate without the presence of the configuration file on the remote server.

XML Configuration

Configuration is via XML, there is no preferences screen.

I’ll update this post with the status of Kiosk Browser SE as development progresses. I’ve set myself a target date for release, so far that’s looking good. Of course there’s still the documentation to do as well.

you can look to the Kiosk Browser SE pages for more detail on the Pro version

If you’re twitter minded you can follow Kiosk Browser for updates and news

What licencing do you prefer?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...


»crosslinked«

[Slashdot] [Digg] [Reddit] [del.icio.us] [Facebook] [Technorati] [Google] [StumbleUpon]

Tagged with:
November 8, 2011 10:50

Current Electricity Use (15min)


iPhone/Webkit RSS Reader

Links


Tags

1-Wire android api Apple arduino currentcost DDAR development DVD FIC freerunner G1 google Google Phone gphone gprs GPS hardware image image builds inspiration iphone jailbreak kiosk linux Mac monitoring Music neo 1973 Nokia openmoko opensource OSX Pachube personal qtopia rhubarb rikki Rio slimp3 slimserver software tracking Trolltech u-boot


Twitpic


Graphy Stuff






Nasty Spam Monkeys