Remote Explorer

Language: English | 简体中文

Remote Explorer is a LAN-first remote browser controller.

The initial version provides a Python/PySide6 desktop server with an embedded Chromium browser, UDP discovery, optional password authentication, and a UDP control protocol. Mobile clients for Android and iOS can use the documented protocol; a Python development client is included for testing the first slice.

Current Scope

• Cross-platform desktop server for Windows and macOS.
• Embedded browser with persistent cookies/cache/profile data.
• Server-announced UDP discovery on the LAN.
• UDP control channel for navigation, click/tap, text input, scroll, back, forward, reload, and selector-based actions.
• Supplemental H5 client served by the desktop server for QR-code pairing.
• Optional password authentication using a challenge-response handshake.
• Python CLI client for local/LAN development.

Quick Start

macOS/Linux Terminal:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[server,dev]"
python -m remote_explorer_server --password 123456

Windows PowerShell:

python -m venv .venv
.\.venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
pip install -e ".[server,dev]"
python -m remote_explorer_server --password 123456

The server uses a Chromium-family browser engine when Chrome, Edge, or Chromium is installed. This improves compatibility with mainstream HTML5 video sites. To point to a browser executable:

macOS/Linux Terminal:

python -m remote_explorer_server --browser-engine chromium --browser-executable "/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"

Windows PowerShell:

python -m remote_explorer_server --browser-engine chromium --browser-executable "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe"

In another Terminal or PowerShell window:

python tools/dev_client.py discover
python tools/dev_client.py navigate --host 127.0.0.1 --password 123456 https://example.com
python tools/dev_client.py click --host 127.0.0.1 --password 123456 200 300
python tools/dev_client.py text --host 127.0.0.1 --password 123456 "hello"

H5 Client

The desktop server also starts a lightweight H5 client over TCP. The control panel shows a QR code and URL; scanning it opens the web client on the same LAN. This is supplemental and does not replace the native UDP/Unity client path. When a remote webpage input is tapped, the H5 client opens a local popup input dialog and sends the text plus Enter from there. The H5 preview stream can be configured up to 30 fps. On first startup the server generates and saves a stable local mDNS hostname from the machine name, using lowercase ASCII and removing spaces, for example livingroompc.local. Later starts keep that hostname even if the machine or server display name changes. Change the H5 .local hostname from server settings or --local-domain when you want to rename it. If local-domain registration is unavailable, the QR code falls back to the LAN IP URL.

By default the H5 service uses the same numeric port as the UDP control service (TCP and UDP can share a port). To choose a different TCP port:

python -m remote_explorer_server --password 123456 --web-port 8080

Unity Client

The Unity client slice lives under client/Assets/RemoteExplorer.

Implemented client features:

• UDP server discovery.
• Password entry and saved auto-connect settings.
• Password authentication and signed commands.
• Remote open/close page, back, forward, reload, and status commands.
• UDP JPEG browser preview stream with 360p/540p/720p/1080p options.
• Stream FPS defaults to 30 and can be configured from 20-60 in the client.
• Stream diagnostics are logged every 5 seconds while active. Server logs go to the server console through an asynchronous logger. Unity client diagnostics are written to remote-explorer-stream.log under Application.persistentDataPath; the Unity Console prints that path once at startup.
• Tap preview to click the remote webpage. Swipe the preview to scroll the page.
• Tapping a webpage input opens the Unity-side input field and writes the text back to the focused remote element.
• The client can auto-detect the current page player and expose TV-remote controls for play/pause, fullscreen, volume, seeking, next, and previous.
• Video fullscreen is handled by the server browser while the active client preview stream keeps running, so remote control can continue after exiting fullscreen.

The client UI is created at runtime by RemoteExplorerBootstrap, so an empty Unity scene can be used directly.

Recommended first test:

1. Start the Python server:

   macOS/Linux Terminal:

   PYTHONPATH=server python -m remote_explorer_server --password 123456

   Windows PowerShell:

   $env:PYTHONPATH='server'
   python -m remote_explorer_server --password 123456

2. Open the Unity project that contains client/Assets/RemoteExplorer.

3. Press Play.

4. Click Discover, select the server, enter the password, then click Connect.

5. Enter a URL and use Open / Close Page.

Without a password:

python -m remote_explorer_server
python tools/dev_client.py navigate --host 127.0.0.1 https://example.com

Ports

• Discovery UDP port: 45454
• Control UDP port: 45455

Both can be changed with command-line flags.

Packaging

Server packages are built by .github/workflows/package-server.yml.

• Windows uploads remote-explorer-server.exe.
• macOS publishes one zip containing Remote Explorer Server.app, so double-clicking opens a normal macOS app bundle instead of a terminal-style command executable.
• macOS builds are split into macos-arm64 for Apple Silicon and macos-x86_64 for Intel Macs. The Intel build sets MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=11.0.
• remote-explorer-server-macos-catalina-x86_64 is a separate legacy Intel package for macOS 10.15. It builds on the supported Intel macOS runner with MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=10.15, Python 3.11, and requirements-macos-catalina.txt so older Qt/PySide dependencies do not affect the normal macOS, Windows, or Linux packages.
• Linux uploads remote-explorer-server-linux.tar.gz, containing the remote-explorer-server executable.

With the current default PySide6 dependency, macOS 11 is the intended minimum for normal packaged macOS apps. Use the Catalina artifact only when macOS 10.15 support is required.

Documentation

• Project plan
• UDP protocol

Notes

UDP traffic is LAN-scoped and not encrypted. Password mode avoids sending the password itself over the network, but packets and session tokens are still visible to devices on the same network. Treat the first release as a trusted-LAN tool.