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Webapp Display

A stand-alone display loading a webApp. Based on Electron and tested on Windows and Mac OS X.

Setup

  • Install Node.js
  • Install dependencies: npm install

Configuration

Command line arguments

Command line arguments:

Argument Description Default
-c --configFile Use a specific config file ./config.json
-l --logDir Use a specific path for logging ./logs
-i --inlineConfig Use the given parameter as JSON config
-h --help Show usage information
-v --version Show version information

Configuration File

The configuration is provided as a .json file. The webapp-display supports a single window and a multi window configuration.

Single Window

  • Make a copy of config.json.singleWindowTemplate and rename it to ./config.json
  • it contains these options
    • bootstrapUrl
    • webAppUrl
    • displayIndex optional, default: 0
    • bounds optional, if not set the window mode will be fullscreen, example: { x: 0, y: 0, width: 800, height: 600 }
    • deviceEmulation optional, example: { type: "desktop", bounds: { width: 3840, height: 2160 } }

Multi Window

  • Make a copy of config.json.multiWindowTemplate and rename it to config.json
  • it contains these options
    • bootstrapUrl
    • windows it contains all options of single window plus:
      • deviceSuffix optional, default: null

When using multiple windows each window should get a deviceSuffix. This suffix will be appended to the device name from the bootstrap server using - as a separator. This results in a unique device and deviceTopic for each window (e.g. bootstrapUrl="http://example.com/device-P1" and deviceSuffix="Left" results in device="device-P1-Left" and deviceTopic="devices/device-P1-Left").

Logs

Logs are created in the path specified via the command line arguments. The log files are named webapp-display-YYYY-MM-DD.log. The logs are rotated daily and the number of log files is limited to 7.

Usage

  • Start the application with npm start

Clear Cache via MQTT API

The app subscribes to the topic devices/<device>/doClearCacheAndRestart. Messages on this topic cause the disk cache to be cleared and the app window to be restarted. The restart is necessary so that the memory cache is also discarded in addition to the deleted disk cache.

Automatic Website Interactions

Some websites require login credentials or cookie accecption (cookie banner). These interactions can be automated with an interaction configuration. examples:

  {
    "url": "https://live.relution.io/",
    "interactions": [
      {
        "selector": "input#mat-input-1",
        "input": "name"
      },
      {
        "selector": "input#mat-input-0",
        "input": "password"
      },
      {
        "selector": "[id=BTN_LOGIN]"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "url": "https://www.telekom-beethoven-competition.de/itbcb-de",
    "interactions": [
      {
        "delay": 2500,
        "selector": "[data-cookie-optin-set=all]",
        "index": 1
      }
    ]
  }

  • selector is the element to be clicked on.

  • input value is used for input fields.

  • index is used to get the right selector, because sometimes there are multiple selectors without an specific id. Default index is 0.

  • delay is needed when cookiebanners just appear after a few seconds.

Build

Windows with Docker

Run from inside the project directory:

docker run --rm -ti \
  --env-file <(env | grep -iE 'DEBUG|NODE_|ELECTRON_|YARN_|NPM_|CI|CIRCLE|TRAVIS_TAG|TRAVIS|TRAVIS_REPO_|TRAVIS_BUILD_|TRAVIS_BRANCH|TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST_|APPVEYOR_|CSC_|GH_|GITHUB_|BT_|AWS_|STRIP|BUILD_') \
  --env ELECTRON_CACHE="/root/.cache/electron" \
  --env ELECTRON_BUILDER_CACHE="/root/.cache/electron-builder" \
  -v ${PWD}:/project \
  -v ${PWD##*/}-node-modules:/project/node_modules \
  -v ~/.cache/electron:/root/.cache/electron \
  -v ~/.cache/electron-builder:/root/.cache/electron-builder \
  electronuserland/builder:wine

Run from inside the container:

npm i
npm run package:win

Install on OS X

npm i
npm run package:mac
open -n -a "webapp-display.app" --args -c path/to/config.json

Final build output is located at build/win-unpacked.

Performance Improvements

This is a list of some command line arguments (Chromium flags) that can have a positive impact on the app's performance.

--force-gpu-rasterization
--enable-native-gpu-memory-buffers
--enable-zero-copy

Troubleshoot Hints

In the follwing cases the credentials fill-in functionality is not working correctly:

  • When devtools are opened, the window is resized and the second input field can't be found.
  • When the same site is loaded instantly again without logging in before. The credentials are filled in the elements of the "old" disappearing iframe in this case.