Quenby (n.): A stubborn spot on a window which you spend twenty minutes trying to clean off before discovering it's on the other side of the glass.

Simple kiosk browser based on Qt/QWebEngine

This project implements a simple kiosk browser that starts off displaying a QWebEngineView widget that loads a given URL through a QWebEnginePage. Inside that page, the Javascript context is provided a QWebChannel interface that allows it to interface with the kiosk browser, open new widgets, make them load arbitrary URLs, receive callback if their URLs or HTML titles have changed etc.

Usage

$ ./quenby --help
Usage: ./quenby [options]
Simple kiosk browser

Options:
  -h, --help               Displays this help.
  -w, --width              Main web view width [default: 1280].
  -i, --height             Main web view height [default: 800].
  -f, --fullscreen         Fullscreen display [default: off].
  -u, --url                Default view URL [default: http://localhost:3000/dist].
  -r, --remote-debug-port  WebEngine debug port [default: 3002].

The Javascript interface

For a basic description of how to interface with a QWebChannel interface, please refer to the Qt WebChannel JavaScript API.

The parameter passed to new QWebChannel should be qt.webChannelTransport, and the channel returned from that callback function can be used for the interaction.

Main widget control interface

In the main widget, the channel provides the following interface through the main object. All other widgets do not have access to this channel for now.

Function calls

• createWebView() creates a new web widget and returns its numerical identifier which can be used later for referral.
• destroyWebView(index) destroys a web widget that was previously created with createWebView(), referenced by its index. All memory used by the widget is freed, and the widget is removed from the screen.
• setWebViewUrl(index, url) sets the URL of the web widget with index index to url.
• setWebViewGeometry(index, x, y, w, h) sets the geometry of the web widget with index index to the given x and y positions and to height h and width w.
• setWebViewVisible(index, visible) sets the visibility of the web widget with index index to visible (true) or invisible (false), as given by the visible parameter.
• setWebViewTransparentBackground(index, transparent) makes the background of web widget with index index either transparent (true) or opaque (false), as given by the transparent parameter.

Callbacks

• onWebViewURLChanged(index, url) is fired whenever the web widget with index index has changed its current URL. The new URL is passed in the paremeter url.
• onWebViewTitleChanged(index, title) is fired whenever the web widget with index index has changed its current HTML page title. The new title is passed in the paremeter title.
• onWebViewLoadProgressChanged(index, value) is fired whenever the web widget with index index changed its loading progress. The current progress is reported in the parameter value, in percentage.

Debugging web pages

Web page debugging is enabled when the target is built in debug mode. Use a Chromium based web browser and point it to http://localhost:3002 while the application is running. You can override the default port with the --debug command line switch.

License

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this software; If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.