paperdisplay

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how does it work

This projects consists of three parts:

Server

The server is a python project with a venv. in prod it serves the api and the frontend both via http

Display controller

There is a small script that controls the display. It can be run via python and passed args like: --bmpfile hello.bmp to render a bitmap

Frontend

The frontend is a React + TypeScript + Vite project.

how does it all work togehter

the script buildProd.sh builds the frontend, copies it, the server and the display directories to dist and copies everything from the misc directory to the root of the dist folder.

raspberrypi (on raspberry pi)

Install Script

Run this command in the root of your pi. It will create two folders, /images and /paperdisplay.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NilsGke/paperdisplay/refs/heads/main/misc/install.sh | bash

manual installation

1. Download and install project and dependencies

# download and unpack release
mkdir paperdisplay
mkdir images
cd paperdisplay
curl -L "https://github.com/NilsGke/paperdisplay/releases/latest/download/dist.tar.gz" -o dist.tar.gz # download
tar -xzf dist.tar.gz # unpack
mv -v dist/* ./ # move project to current directory
rm -r dist dist.tar.gz # cleanup

# install dependencies for display
sudo apt update
sudo apt install libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev
sudo apt-get install python3-pil
sudo apt install python3-gpiozero
pip3 install pigpio
pip3 install spidev
pip3 install gpiozero
# (TODO: CHECK IF ALL OF THEM ARE RELEVANT)

# install screen to be ablet to run server process in background
sudo apt-get install screen


# setup python server
cd server
python3 -m venv venv # create python virtual env
source venv/bin/activate # activate venv
pip3 install -r requirements.txt # install dependencies
deactivate # deactivate venv
cd ..

2. Enable SPI

Open the Raspberry Pi configuration tool:

sudo raspi-config

Navigate to Interface Options → SPI and enable it. Reboot your Raspberry Pi to apply the changes:

sudo reboot

Run the Project

To start the server just run the ./start.sh file in the root of the project.

./start.sh

This will run the server in the background.
You can attatch to the process by running:

screen -r paperdisplay-server

You might need to update the permissions when you are trying to run the start script

chmod +x ./start.sh

Update

If there is a new version available, the frontend will show a banner on the start page. To update the project, first stop the server and run the ./update.sh shell script.

./stop.sh
./update.sh

You might need to update the permissions.

chmod +x ./stop.sh
chmod +x ./update.sh

development

# clone repository
git clone https://github.com/NilsGke/paperdisplay.git
cd paperdisplay

# setup frontend
cd fronend
bun i
cd ..

# setup backend
cd backend
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip3 install -r requirements.txt