Kiosk capability like old Mkiosk add-on? Need suggestions
Ending in 52.X, one of the old add-ons called mkiosk was really wonderful. It had all sorts of configurable options including one that was critical to my free application of Firefox-ESR used by some non-profits. That feature was a timeout such that if the user walked away while not in the "home" web page, a configurable parameter returned firefox to that "home" page. I have not found this feature anywhere else. Unfortunately, installing 52.X on a standalone current bullseye version for the Raspberry Pi is turning out to be problematic. Is there any way to resolve this issue?
Some ideas: 1) Find out how to make Firefox accept an obsolete add-on 2) Fins out how to tell with an external program what page Firefox is on and by periodically polling it, kill and restart Firefox if the time on that page exceeds a certain limit. On the old mkiosk, I set 5 minutes.
Any help here? I'm not a json person so even editing the old mkiosk is beyond me.
All Replies (6)
jpezz said
Some ideas: 1) Find out how to make Firefox accept an obsolete add-on
I am not familiar with that specific add-on, but there may be a technical reason that it stopped working. Before Firefox 57, Firefox supported extensions that uses XUL and Bootstrap, which were earlier interfaces. Starting in Firefox 57, Firefox only supports the WebExtensions interface, so XUL and Bootstrap extensions are no longer compatible.
2) Fins out how to tell with an external program what page Firefox is on and by periodically polling it, kill and restart Firefox if the time on that page exceeds a certain limit. On the old mkiosk, I set 5 minutes.
I think a new add-on could do this. A search for time limit turned up these two, but there might be one even better suited to your needs if you try some other queries:
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng/
- https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/limit-limit-distracting-sites/
Note: I have not tried those myself.
Unfortunately, it appears those add-ons are designed to limit use of a site. That's not what I need. For a kiosk browser, one wants a fullscreen layout with no access to make changes, terminate or otherwise interrupt it and, using a touchscreen monitor, go to pages by selecting the desired choice. However, when one walks away without returning the screen to the main page, there needs to be some way to detect that and, after a period of time, return to the main screen. That add-on had that feature but I don't seem to find that in any of the add-ons presently available.
Note that the system runs without web access and all pages are local on the machine. The system is used at our small museum and the user picks a location (like room and wall) and is presented by a page that shows thumbnails of the items on that wall. The user then touches a picture and is presented with a page that describes the item, it's history, etc. and presents other pictures (like a view of the back or inside. By touching the picture, they get a fullblown high resolution picture.
There is a back button in the upper left but often visitors just walk away so the present add-on recognizes that nobody has done anything for x (settable) minutes and returns Firefox to the home screen.
When Firefox changed the add-on interface, the developer chose not to continue it.
Without such a feature, I can't use the new Raspberry Pi computers as they require a newer version of the O.S. which means I have to find a newer version of Firefox and a new add-on.
Modified by jpezz
Did you look at Firefox kiosk mode?
Yes, I did already. It seems to have very little in the way of disabling things such as the information in the toolbar but most important, it lacks the timeout feature I need unless I can find a way to periodically query the running Firefox or one of its files to see if it is not on the home page and the page being shown has not changed since the last query. If I could do the latter, a small program/shellscript would allow me to kill and restart Firefox.
Thanks for your suggestion, though.
Does this timeout need to be in the browser, or can it be in the web app? Every banking website has a timeout where your session ends and the site returns to the home page.
If you can't change the website, of course an add-on could do it. But maybe you'll need someone to write it. There's a user who goes by igorlogius over on r/Firefox who seems to help people like that quite often. Or perhaps there are other places to recruit help.
jscher2000 - Support Volunteer said
Does this timeout need to be in the browser, or can it be in the web app? Every banking website has a timeout where your session ends and the site returns to the home page. If you can't change the website, of course an add-on could do it. But maybe you'll need someone to write it. There's a user who goes by igorlogius over on r/Firefox who seems to help people like that quite often. Or perhaps there are other places to recruit help.
It's not just the timeout. There were a lot of options in that add-on. Timeout is critical but is not the only need.
I am pursuing trying to build a new armhf and arm64 versions from the source of 52.9 Firefox.