tempus

A clock replacement for the office of ACM@UIC.

Features

Time

Time and date for the client's timezone.

Transit

Upcoming arrivals for CTA Bus and Train stops specified by the user.

Weather

Weather for specified location by the user from DarkSky's Weather API.

Events

Upcoming events for the specifed calendar ids from Google Calendar API.

SlackBot

Interactions using Slack's Real Time Messaging API. The app can interpret mentions and direct messages.

Configuration

Feature	Configuration Name
Time
Transit	ctabusapikey, ctabusstops, ctatrainapikey, ctatrainstations
Weather	darkskyapikey, latlong
Events	googleapikey, googlecalendarids
SlackBot	slackbottoken
GitHub	githubrepo

Docker Container Deployment

The app is packaged into a tiny (based on nginx).

docker build --tag acm-uic/tempus
docker run -d --restart=always -p 8080:80 acm-uic/tempus

Deploying a Raspberry Pi as a Kiosk

Using pi-kiosk.sh

Usage: sudo bash pi-kiosk.sh <WEBSITE> <DISPLAY ORIENTATION: normal|left|right|inverted>

Example:

sudo bash pi-kiosk.sh http://localhost:8080 normal

Manual

These instructions should apply to I used a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B but should work for all Pis.

Enable ssh and set password for user pi as needed.

Disable overscan

sudo sed -i '1s/^/disable_overscan=1\n/' /boot/config.txt

Configure autologon

sudo mkdir -pv /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]
sudo cat << EOF >> /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]/autologin.conf
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty --autologin pi --noclear %I $TERM
EOF
sudo cat << EOF >> /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]/noclear.conf
[Service]
TTYVTDisallocate=no
EOF

Configure timezone, locale, and keyboard layout.

cat <<EOF > /etc/default/keyboard
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS=""
BACKSPACE="guess"
EOF
sudo timedatectl set-ntp true
sudo timedatectl set-timezone America/Chicago
sudo cp /etc/locale.gen /etc/locale.gen.bak
echo 'en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8' | sudo tee /etc/locale.gen
sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8
sudo update-locale en_US.UTF-8

Run system, and firmware updates.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo SKIP_WARNING=1 rpi-update

Install X11 Server and, Chromium.

sudo apt install --no-install-recommends -y vim chromium-browser xserver-xorg x11-xserver-utils xinit openbox

Configure openbox to start chromium-browser. Replace WEBSITE varibale as needed.

WEBSITE='http://localhost:8080' cat << EOF >> /etc/xdg/openbox/autostart
# Disable any form of screen saver / screen blanking / power management
xset s off
xset s noblank
xset -dpms

# Allow quitting the X server with CTRL-ATL-Backspace
setxkbmap -option terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp

# Start Chromium in kiosk mode
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/' ~/.config/chromium/'Local State'
sed -i 's/"exited_cleanly":false/"exited_cleanly":true/; s/"exit_type":"[^"]\+"/"exit_type":"Normal"/' ~/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences
xrandr --output HDMI-1 --rotate left
chromium-browser --disable-infobars --kiosk $WEBSITE
EOF

Start openbox on boot

echo '[[ -z $DISPLAY && $XDG_VTNR -eq 1 ]] && startx -- -nocursor' | sudo tee -a /home/pi/.profile