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https://github.com/mmitch/omxplayer-frontend

web frontend for Raspberry Pi omxplayer media player
https://github.com/mmitch/omxplayer-frontend

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web frontend for Raspberry Pi omxplayer media player

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README 

        
omxplayer-frontend

==================



This is a web frontend for the Raspberry Pi omxplayer media player.

It is licensed under GNU GPL v3 or later and available at 

https://github.com/mmitch/omxplayer-frontend



omxplayer-frontend was originally written by TallOak and Krageon.

This is a fork based on their omxplayer-frontend hosted over at

bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/krageon/omxplayer-frontend



See the upstream branch for the original import.  krageon told me

it's ok to clone it to github and put the GPL on it, so I did :-)

Thanks!



PROJECT STATUS

--------------



This project is on hiatus, but feel free to use it or improve it.



I might pull in a merge request, but don't expect me to be fast about

it or to take everything.



I don't use omxplayer-frontend any more, so don't expect any updates

from me.



I don't speak Python, so don't expect me to implement any feature

requests - I'm simply not able to ;-)



### PROJECT HISTORY ###



When I got my Raspberry Pi, I was looking for a simple media player

and found omxplayer-frontend and did some minor adjustments.

Remember: It's not written by me but by TallOak and krageon, I just

copied it over from bitbucket to github because I don't have a

bitbucket account.  omxplayer-frontend was simple, easy and worked

like a charm and everything was well.



After some time I was not so happy any more needing a working

networking to control omxplayer-frontend.  I wanted to take the

Raspberry Pi to a hotel room and hook it up there and did not want to

bring my own WLAN with me just to control the player.  This gave birth

to https://github.com/mmitch/omxplayer-console which I still use (and

sometimes improved) today.  It runs on the console and I control it via

a cheap IR remote control that acts as a USB HID Keyboard and sends

simple keypresses.  No networking needed.



So omxplayer-frontend is by no means a bad program, but my use case

has shifted and now I need something else.



PREREQUISITES

-------------



Obviously, you'll need omxplayer.  If it is not already installed on

your system, it should be available via

```

  % apt-get install omxplayer

```



The preinstalled version on the Raspian images from late 2012 was too

old (some commandline parameters have changed), but

```

  % apt-get update; apt-get upgrade

```



did the trick.  If all else fails, get omxplayer from here:

* omxplayer source:   https://github.com/popcornmix/omxplayer

* omxplayer builds:   http://omxplayer.sconde.net/



You'll also need python and the Python package installer.  Both should

be installed by 

```

   % apt-get install python-pip

```



After that, install the Python module web.py:

```

   % pip install web.py

```



INSTALLATION

------------



Put omxplayer-frontend wherever you like.  In this example, we'll put

it under `$HOME/git/omxplayer-frontend`.  The easiest way to download

is to clone the repository:

```

   $ cd ~/git

   $ git clone git://github.com/mmitch/omxplayer-frontend.git

```

This will create the `omxplayer-frontend` subdirectory.  Next, go there

and create a FIFO named `omxin`.  This will be used by `omxplayerd.py`

to communicate with the omxplayer process.  Unfortunately, a FIFO

can't be checked in to git so you have to create it manually:

```

   $ cd ~/git/omxplayer-frontend

   $ mkfifo omxin

```

Next, either create a subdirectory named `media` in the

`omxplayer-frontend` directory and copy your media files there or

(this is more flexible and recommended) create a link named media to

your existing files:

```

   $ cd ~/git/omxplayer-frontend

   $ ln -s /path/where/your/files/are media

```

Now you are ready to go and can start the omxplayer daemon:

```

   $ cd ~/git/omxplayer-frontend

   $ ./omxplayerd.py

```

`omxplayerd.py` will then be running on port 8080 and can be reached via

http://your.ip:8080/



`omxplayerd.py` itself should run perfectly fine with normal user

permissions.  If you can't play videos, check if you can run `omxplayer`

as a normal user - if this works only as root, either change the

permissions on the video and audio devices or run `omxplayerd.py` as

root.  Running as root is generally not a very good idea, but on a

small system for video-only use it might be acceptable.



Root permissions will also be necessary for shutting down your system

via `omxplayerd.py`, see SHUTDOWN below.



PROPER INSTALLATION

-------------------



### AUTOSTART ###



To automatically start `omxplayerd.py` on boot, you could write

initscripts or add `omxplayerd.py` to `/etc/inittab`, but the easiest way

is a crontab entry.  Open your crontab via `crontab -e` and add a line

like this:

```bash

   @reboot cd git/omxplayer-frontend; ./omxplayerd.py > /tmp/omxplayerd.log

```

If you want to run `omxplayerd.py` as root, add this to root's crontab.

In that case, the logfile should be at `/var/log/omxplayerd.log`



### SHUTDOWN ###



The web frontend has a small link at the bottom (sometimes just below

the visible page) that allows system shutdown.  This is intended for

systems that don't have any keyboard attached and where you don't want

to open an SSH session to power down (eg. when controlling

`omxplayerd.py` via browser from your smartphone).



For this to work properly, `omxplayerd.py` has to be run as root

(beware of the security implications).



If you want use sudo(1) instead or just create a file that is checked

regularly by another job running as root (root's crontab perhaps),

have a look at class `Shutdown` in `omxplayerd.py` and adjust the

`subprocess.call()` accordingly.



### PORT CHANGE ###



By default, `omxplayerd.py` will run on port 8080. If you want another

port (say, the default HTTP port 80 when you have no other webserver

running, so you don't have to enter the `:8080` in the URL), add the

port number as a parameter to `omxplayerd.py`

```

   $ cd ~/git/omxplayer-frontend

   $ ./omxplayerd.py 80

```

Of course, this can also be done in a crontab.



UPDATES

-------



Let git update the repository:

```

   $ cd ~/git/omxplayer-frontend

   $ git update

```

If it finds updates and downloads them, you shold restart the running

`omxplayerd.py`.  The most simple way to do this is a reboot if

`omxplayerd.py` is started automatically.  Ugly but working :)