This repository contains the latest and greatest version Pi Presents. Use if you are happy with bleeding edge software that is under development.
Diese Readme-Datei hat Peter Vasen ins Deutsche übersetzt. Klicken Sie hier http://www.web-echo.de/4.html
VERSION 1.4.3 ONWARDS IS PYTHON 3 ONLY
Read the 'Installing Pi Presents Beep' section below.
To upgrade follow the instructions in the 'Updating Pi Presents' section below. Then follow any instructions in the Release Notes.
Pi Presents is a toolkit for producing interactive multimedia applications for museums, visitor centres, and more.
There are a number of Digital Signage solutions for the Raspberry Pi which are generally browser based, limited to slideshows, non-interactive, and driven from a central server enabling the content to be modified frequently.
Pi Presents is different, it is stand alone, multi-media, highly interactive, diverse in it set of control paradigms – slideshow, cursor controlled menu, radio button, and hyperlinked show, and able to interface with users or machines over several types of interface. It is aimed primarly at curated applications in museums, science centres, and visitor centres.
Being so flexible Pi Presents needs to be configured for your application. This is achieved using a simple to use graphical editor and needs no Python programming. There are numerous tutorial examples and a comprehensive manual.
There are two current versions of Pi Presents. ‘Gapless’ is the current stable version which is not being developed except for bug fixes. 'Beep' is a continuation of Gapless which is being developed to add new features.
For a detailed list of applications and features see here:
https://pipresents.wordpress.com/features/
See the licence.md file. Pi Presents is Careware to help support a small museum charity http://www.museumoftechnology.org.uk Particularly if you are using Pi Presents in a profit making situation a donation would be appreciated.
The full manual in English is here https://github.com/KenT2/pipresents-beep/blob/master/manual.pdf. It will be downloaded with Pi Presents.
* must use the latest version of Raspberry Pi OS (legacy) with Desktop (not the Lite version)
* must be run from the PIXEL desktop.
* must be installed and run from user Pi
* must have Python 3 installed (which Rasperry Pi OS does)
* should use a clean install of Raspberry Pi OS, particularly if you intend to use GPIO
NOTE: PI PRESENTS DOES NOT WORK WITH BULLSEYE WHICH IS THE LATEST VERSION OF THE OS. INSTEAD USE THE LEGACY VERSION BASED ON BUSTER THAT CAN BE OBTAINED USING THE IMAGER OR CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM HERE:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/operating-systems/#raspberry-pi-os-legacy
Using the Raspbian menu preferences>raspberry pi configuration>performance, increase the GPU Memory to 256. On a Pi Zero this may not be possible due to the small amount of RAM.
Pi Presents MUST have the latest version of omxplayer and of Raspbian, get this by
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install python3-pil.imagetk
sudo apt install unclutter
sudo apt install mplayer
sudo apt install python3-pexpect (may be already installed)
sudo pip3 install python-vlc
sudo pip3 install selenium
Now you have two choices of chromium browser. You will need the hardware accelerated browser to play videos in the browser and possibly for complex web sites, otherwise continue with the updated software accelerated browser.
a. If you wish to retain the currently installed software accelerated browser which will be updated. Installing this driver will retain the out of the box installed browser (chromium)
sudo apt install chromium-driver
b. If you wish to switch to the hardware accelerated browser which will not receive updates then install this driver. Doing so will delete the software accelerated browser and install the hardware accelerated browser (chromium-browser)
sudo apt install chromium-chromedriver
sudo pip3 install evdev (if you are using the input device I/O plugin)
sudo apt install mpg123 (for .mp3 beeps)
sudo apt install uzbl (for legacy uzbl browser)
From a terminal window open in your home directory type:
wget https://github.com/KenT2/pipresents-beep/tarball/master -O - | tar xz # -O is a capital Ohhh...
There should now be a directory 'KenT2-pipresents-beep-xxxx' in your /home/pi directory. Copy or rename the directory to pipresents
Run Pi Presents to check the installation is successful. From a terminal window opened in the home directory type:
python3 /home/pi/pipresents/pipresents.py
You will see a window with an error message which is because you have no profiles.Click OK to exit Pi Presents.
Examples are in the github repository pipresents-beep-examples.
Open a terminal window in your home directory and type:
wget https://github.com/KenT2/pipresents-beep-examples/tarball/master -O - | tar xz
There should now be a directory 'KenT2-pipresents-beep-examples-xxxx' in the /home/pi directory. Open the directory and move the 'pp_home' directory and its contents to the /home/pi directory.
From the terminal window type:
python3 /home/pi/pipresents/pipresents.py -p pp_mediashow_1p4
to see a repeating multimedia show
Exit this with CTRL-BREAK or closing the window, then:
python3 /home/pi/pipresents/pipresents.py -p pp_mediashow_1p4 -f -b
to display full screen and to disable screen blanking
Now read the manual to try other examples.
Install Python 3 version of some packages:
sudo apt-get install python3-pil.imagetk
sudo apt-get install python3-pexpect
sudo pip3 install evdev
sudo pip3 install python-vlc
The Python 2 versions of these packages can be left installed
Open a terminal window in the /home/pi and type:
wget https://github.com/KenT2/pipresents-beep/tarball/master -O - | tar xz
There should now be a directory 'KenT2-pipresents-beep-xxxx' in the /home/pi directory
Rename the existing pipresents directory to old-pipresents
Rename the new directory to pipresents.
Copy any files you have changed from old to new /pipresents/pp_config directory. Copy any files you have changed from old to new /pipresents/pp_io_config directory. Copy any files you have changed from old to new /pipresents/pp_io_plugins directory. Copy any files you have used or changed from old to new /pipresents/pp_track_plugins directory. Note: in 1.4.1b track plugins have been moved to their examples
Examples are in the github repository pipresents-beep-examples.
Rename the existing pp_home directory to old_pp_home.
Open a terminal window in your home directory and type:
wget https://github.com/KenT2/pipresents-beep-examples/tarball/master -O - | tar xz
There should now be a directory 'KenT2-pipresents-beep-examples-xxxx' in the /home/pi directory.
Open the directory and move the 'pp_home' directory and its contents to the /home/pi directory.
These examples are compatible with the version of Pi Presents you have just downloaded. In addition you can update profiles from earlier 1.4.x or 1.3.x versions by simply opening them in the editor (make a backup copy first).
You can use the update>update all menu option of the editor to update all profiles in a single directory at once.
Lastly you will need to do some manual updating of some of the field values as specified in ReleaseNotes.txt. Start at the paragraph in ReleaseNotes.txt that introduces your previous version and work forwards
I am keen to develop Pi Presents further and would welcome bug reports and ideas for additional features and uses.
Please use the Issues tab on Github https://github.com/KenT2/pipresents-beep/issues.
For more information on how Pi Presents is being used, Hints and Tips on how to use it and all the latest news hop over to the Pi Presents website https://pipresents.wordpress.com/