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HomeCanvas 1.0.1 — videos, thirteen languages and fourteen new widgets

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@vwillcox vwillcox released this 29 Sep 12:20
v1.0.1
7bb6b9d
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Learn about vigilant mode.

Videos on the panel, the panel in thirteen languages, and fourteen new
widgets: 52 in all, up from 38.

On a still dashboard the kiosk now uses about 2% of one CPU core, down from
66%, and the whole Pi is 3–4% busy, down from 22%.

Breaking changes

These may need something doing after you update:

  • The editor only answers on the home network. Opening it by a public
    domain name, or through a reverse proxy, is now refused. Use the Pi's IP
    address, its name (homecanvas.local), or another home-network name
    (.lan, .home.arpa). This closes a DNS-rebinding hole.
  • Scripts that call the editor's API must send an Origin header.
    Saving the layout, and the sender-token pages, now answer only the editor's
    own pages. From curl, add the editor's own address, for example
    -H "Origin: http://127.0.0.1:8090".
  • The local control port (8766) refuses requests from web pages. curl
    and scripts on the Pi are unaffected.
  • config.json and the other secrets are readable only by the kiosk's
    user.     That includes the share keys, site cookies and TV tokens. A tool
    running as another user can no longer read them.
  • News tiles lost the "Headlines to show" setting. They scroll through
    every headline instead.
  • The panel's language defaults to British English. For American
    spelling and MM/DD/YYYY dates, choose English (US) under
    Settings → System → Language, or from the language picker in the
    editor.
  • YouTube needs a current yt-dlp, not the distribution's package. The
    packaged yt-dlp no longer works with YouTube. Install it from
    Settings → Music → Videos (see below).

Updating, and changes to the install instructions

  • Update by running the installer again, as before:

    curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vwillcox/HomeCanvas/main/install.sh | bash

    It now also restarts the screen controller (screen-control.service),
    if you set it up, so the panel can rest while the screen is dark.

  • Updating by hand? After git pull and the build, also run
    systemctl --user restart screen-control.

  • For videos: Settings → Music → Videos → Install yt-dlp. This
    fetches yt-dlp and deno into ~/.local/share/homecanvas/bin, needs no
    sudo, and yt-dlp then updates itself daily.

  • New, optional: boot straight into the kiosk. Run
    bash scripts/kiosk-session.sh, then reboot, for a session with only the
    kiosk instead of the full desktop. The desktop's taskbar alone uses about
    370 MB. bash scripts/kiosk-session.sh remove goes back.

  • New, optional keys. Every new widget works without a key. Two can use
    one:

    • a free CoinGecko Demo key for Crypto, which is recommended because
      CoinGecko's keyless allowance is small and shared by everyone at your
      address;
    • an ElevenLabs key, to have News articles read in an ElevenLabs voice
      rather than piper.

  • New sections in INSTALL.md: YouTube, Floatplane, Nebula,
    booting straight into the kiosk, and ElevenLabs for the news reader.

New

Videos on the panel: YouTube, Floatplane and Nebula

  • Play links shared from the phone app, tapped in the News widget, or sent to
    the control port (POST 127.0.0.1:8766/youtube?url=…).
  • Watch full screen, or picture-in-picture over any screen. Drag it, pinch
    it, or pull its corner to resize it.
  • YouTube, Floatplane and Nebula widgets show the latest from
    your subscriptions.
  • Signing in is optional for YouTube and required for the other two. Sign in
    on the panel, or from a computer at the editor's address plus /youtube,
    /floatplane or /nebula.
  • Up to 1080p60 on a Pi 5. Nebula's HEVC uses the Pi's hardware decoder.

Thirteen languages

  • Every on-screen string can be translated: the panel, Settings and the
    editor's web pages.
  • British English is the base, with an American English pack.
  • AI-created packs, marked as such in the picker:
    • complete: Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Swedish and Norwegian
      (Bokmål);
    • partial: French, German, Portuguese and Irish, which fall back to English
      where a string isn't translated yet.
  • Dates follow the language: 28/09/2026 in British English, 09/28/2026 in
    American English, 28.9.2026 in German.

New widgets

  • Stocks and Crypto:
    • a list, cards, or one card filling the tile, with daily to yearly charts;
    • what you paid shown as a line on the chart, with holdings, gain or loss,
      and time held;
    • Crypto falls back to Coinbase's public prices when CoinGecko refuses.
  • GitHub: stars, issues, pull requests, releases and a weekly commit
    chart for your repositories, with a tab each, and with a token, who has
    been visiting.
  • Reminders: send "Remind me to put the bins out at 7pm" from the phone
    app. When a reminder is due, the panel says it aloud and shows its page.
  • Getting out:
    • London lines and London arrivals, from TfL;
    • Fuel prices: the cheapest petrol or diesel near home, from the UK's
      open fuel-price scheme;
    • Departures: trains, trams, subways and buses across Europe and
      North America, live where the operator shares it, from Transitous;
    • Planes overhead: flights around home, with where each is from and
      going to, and which way to look;
    • Traffic cameras: TfL's 900 JamCams, or any camera image address;
    • Tides: high and low times, and the sea's height through the day.
  • YouTube, Floatplane and Nebula, above.

News

  • Tiles scroll, and pulling down from the top refreshes them.
  • Each headline shows its site's icon.
  • An optional layout with a tab for each feed.
  • The article reader can use ElevenLabs. Piper stays the default, and reads
    whenever ElevenLabs can't.

The editor

  • Rows in any list setting (stocks, coins, feeds, cameras…) can be dragged
    into a new order, or moved with the arrow keys.
  • Folded panels and rows stay as you left them, in every browser.
  • Links to the panel's other pages (notes, list, senders…), and a way back
    from each.
  • UniFi widgets have a group of their own.
  • Dates are entered in the panel's language's order.

Smaller additions

  • A Locked Folder left alone for 10 minutes locks itself.
  • Shared photos and videos are deleted once they've been seen.
  • POST 127.0.0.1:8766/screen?lit=true|false tells the kiosk when the
    screen goes dark or lights up.

Security fixes

  • Any web page on the home network could read or create share tokens. Now
    only the editor's senders page can.
  • Any web page could overwrite the dashboard layout. Now only the editor can.
  • Sites that point their own domain name at the panel (DNS rebinding) are
    refused.
  • Links are opened only if they're http or https. A file:// link in a
    feed could have shown the config on screen.
  • The control port refuses commands from web pages.
  • Secrets on disk are readable by the kiosk's user only, and are saved in
    one piece. A power cut mid-save could leave an empty config.
  • Share tokens are compared in constant time.
  • Size limits on editor requests, feeds, calendars and article pages.

Bug fixes

  • The correct Locked Folder PIN was refused after Immich's session expired.
  • The TV showed its pairing code on every restart.
  • Days the clocks change: fixes to bins, meals, scheduled tiles and chores.
  • Every shared photo and video was kept on disk forever.
  • A few video-site errors: a crash on a video with no formats, and uploaded
    cookies being discarded when the site couldn't be reached.

Power and speed

  • While the screen is dark, animations stop and tiles that poll skip their
    checks. They catch up the moment it lights again.
  • A still dashboard no longer redraws itself 60 times a second.
  • Less background work: Spotify progress, the servers tile and the TV-remote
    button are all checked less often.
  • Feeds, calendars and articles are parsed off the UI thread, so video
    doesn't stutter.

Known issues

  • The screen stays at full brightness whenever the dashboard is up. Night
    hours are planned.
  • The UniFi console's certificate isn't checked yet.
  • The French, German, Portuguese and Irish translations are partial, and
    Danish and Welsh aren't started.
  • New York subway times from Transitous are timetabled, not live.
  • Tide heights are modelled, not measured: fine for the beach, not for
    navigation.

The full list of changes is in CHANGELOG.md. Guides and every widget: the Wiki. Questions and ideas: Discussions.

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