PiSimpleSignage

Simple, lean digital signage tool for managing & displaying images on multiple signage screens. Management is done in an web interface. To display the images, just run a browser in Kiosk mode and point it to the correct URL!

Disclaimer

I have been using this tool in its current form for a couple of months now without any issues. That said, it is still not production-level software. Use it at your own risks!

Getting Started

There is no automated way to set it up until now. However, it is fairly straightforward.

If you know what you are doing, here the tl;dr: Copy the content of html to your webserver. Make any changes neccessary to config/config.php. Make sure to set proper access rights, refer to the .htaccess files in html and its subfolders for the recommended way.
If you want to use any other database than sql, in sql_create.txt, the commands to create the tables and triggers neccessary are shown. Furthermore, you will need to change the database connector in the php files.

Furthermore, any contributions are welcome! Just send me a pull request if you add anything useful!
If you do not know what you are doing and the (fairly beta) instructions below are not enough, contact me at github@meyerweb.eu. I will try to help the best I can and if I fell that this project gains traction, I will implement an automated way to set it up.

Prerequisites

You need:

• A RaspberryPi (or any other PC) connected to your display. PiZero works as well. Examples are supplied for Linux.
• Access to a web server (.htaccess files are supplied for Apache 2.4). Can also run directly on the RPi.

Setup

• Copy the content of the html folder to your webserver. If you are not using Apache2.4 or higher, be sure to adjust the .htaccess files.

  • For displaying images, the client needs acces to ajax.php, display.php, images/, js and css.
  • The rest of the files in html only needs to be accessed for managing the images and devices.
  • No one needs access to config/ via the webserver. The config.php is read via an include statement in php and never by GET.

• The easiest way to protect the management interface is to set up BasicAuth with your webserver. An example for Apache can be found here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-password-authentication-with-apache-on-ubuntu-14-04 If you but the .htpasswd file anywhere else than /etc/apache2/.htpasswd, adjust the path in html/.htaccess/ accordingly.

• If you run PiSimpleSignage in a subfolder (e.g. https://your-domain.com/<your-folder>/), add the subfolder in html/.htaccess/ like this:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "PiSimpleSignage"
AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/.htpasswd

<RequireAny>
	Require expr %{REQUEST_URI} = "/<your-folder>/display.php"
	Require expr %{REQUEST_URI} = "/<your-folder>/ajax.php"
	Require valid-user
</RequireAny>

You should be good to go! Just open go to index.php in your browser for the server and start adding images. The url for displaying the images is shown on the devices page for each device. In the pi_linux/ folder, you find a autostart file for LXDE based desktops which will launch chromium in kiosk mode. Just edit the display link to point to the device of your choice.