NodeView is the central control program of the OpenKiosk system.
Currently, it serves three purposes: (1) It acts as a remote control and
administration tool for kiosk terminals in your network. (2) Generate
reports and statistics on your site in addition to tracking the
performance and cash flow of your employees. (3) An account server
providing login information for OpenKiosk clients
Future of NodeView
The third function of NodeView will likely be separated into a new
service program.
In OpenKiosk 2.0, NodeView will play an even much bigger role. It will
be the only program that can control and customize ODE (OpenKiosk
Desktop Environment), a user-interface for kiosk terminals with an
emphasis on simplicity and ease of use. In addition, NodeView will set
the content for the internal kiosk browser.
Figure 1. NodeView main window
OpenKiosk started as an experimental project in early 2000. I had a
cybercafe business back then and wanted to automate the management of
the terminals using open-source software. Searching in usenet,
sourceforge and even slashdot didn't do any good. An open-source program
that matched my needs was not yet available at that time. Frustrated in
the end, I finally decided to write my own tool.
OpenKiosk was called Xkiosk before, was written in C, and used Motif
for the GUI. It has the same basic principles of what is now known as
NodeView today and looks quite similar to it. However it didn't have any
client software and controlling kiosks in the network was done
internally using the Network Packet Filtering feature in Linux (if you
are interested, the source code for the old program can still be found
in the "old" subdirectory of the cvs repository for
this project). In 2003, the project was rewritten from scratch. This
time, it was based on Qt. A powerful multi-platform C++ toolkit, the
foundation from which the KDE project is also built.
The features in the OpenKiosk Project is a result after years of
observation of the behaviour of kiosk customers and employees in an
establishment that relies on public computer terminals. Today the need
for quality open-source kiosk software is still high. OpenKiosk aims to
fulfill that need. Finally, it will include features that will make
OpenKiosk not just a tool for managing kiosks and workstations but an
excellent platform for on-site e-commerce and business as well.
Nodeview is a server program distributed only by source code. It
requires:
If the required libraries mentioned above are not yet in your
system, download them first before proceeding. How to install them is
beyond the scope of this document. Please read the documentation that
comes with those software for more information.
One thing that is very important is that Berkeley DB should be
installed in /usr/local. Berkeley DB installs to this directory by
default and you should not attempt to modify it in any way or the
compiler will fail to find the correct headers and libraries when
compiling NodeView and give you very cryptic errors.
Download the most recent version of the NodeView package from http://openkiosk.sourceforge.net/dw.htm
and save it to a temporary directory in your system. Go to this
directory and unpack the source by typing "tar xzvf nodeview-V.tar.gz",
where V is the version.
In the directory where you saved the NodeView package go to the
resulting subdirectory created by unpacking the NodeView distribution.
cd nodeview-0.8/
To start building NodeView, enter the following command sequence:
./configure
make
The first step is a qmake wrapper that configures NodeView to work
for you system. In addition, it finds the required libraries in your
system and will fail if one is missing. The second command compiles the
nodeview executable itself.
To install nodeview permanently in your system, enter the command
after compile is successful:
make install
If you later decide to remove nodeview from your system, enter the
command:
make uninstall
Before you can run NodeView, you must add the directory containing
the Berkeley DB libraries to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment. The syntax
depends whether you use csh/tcsh or sh/bash as shell.
If you are using csh. Add to your .cshrc:
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH "$LD_LIBRARY_PATH":/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.X/lib
If you are using sh (or bash). Add to your .bashrc:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.X/lib
Replace the X above with the Berkeley DB minor version.
Another way of appending the Berkeley DB libraries to your system's library search path is if you have root access in your system. You can append the Berkeley DB lib directory directly to /etc/ld.so.conf.
To manually start NodeView, enter "nodeview &" in an xterm or
equivalent terminal program.
Since NodeView is a server program, it will be convenient if the
program also starts up when the system is started. Clients will not be
able to connect to NodeView unless it is running.
If you are using KDE, drag a link of the NodeView executable in
/usr/local/bin using konqueror file browser to your KDE Autostart
directory. The KDE Autostart directory is usually located in
$HOME/.kde/Autostart (the location could be different in your system).
The next time you login to KDE, NodeView will be started automatically.
For other desktop environments, please see their documentation on how to
auto-start applications.
When NodeView is started, it shows a dialog listing operators that
have access to the program. If you are running NodeView for the first
time, the Administrator account is the only user presented to you.
Select this and leave the password blank since we have not yet set the
administrator password at this point.
If NodeView is started for the first time, the workstation view is
blank and the program will warn you that NodeView needs to be configured
for your site in order for it to be usable.