balena-dashboards 5.0.0

When looking at some of the recent applications of the project, we found that there are a number of use cases where the load time needed to be improved. For example, when loading a webpage that takes ~5-10 seconds for all of the content to finish loading visibly, a significant amount of view time is wasted (up to a 3rd of the total time for a slide designated to display for 30 seconds!!).

Rather than load 'x' number of URLs within a single browserWindow module within Electron, this release loads a dynamic number of browserWindows and then cycles through them. The difference in load time is astounding.

There are a few number of changes that are breaking, including:

• Enviroment Variables
  • Word representation of numbers (new naming convention): SLIDE_1 -> SLIDE_ONE or TIME_1 -> TIME_ONE
  • SLIDE variables are now URL variables (see README for clarification)
  • The slide count and time count variables being at ONE and not ZERO
  • Removal of SLIDE_COUNT variable (the number of URLs is dynamically evaluated)
• Upgrade to Debian Buster and Electron v5.0.0

Version 3.0.0

• Includes update to Electron v5.0.0

Version 2.1.1

• Clean up splash code
• Rework ElectronJS code to allow for better env storage
• Set default env vars and use nice splash screen

Version 2.0.1

• Rename containers
• Clean up electron scripts

Version 2.0.0

• Introduces support for devices other than amd64 by replacing FROM
  arch line with %%BALENA_MACHINE_NAME%%
• Extended stability for x11vnc using -find flag
• Create function for infinite looping

Initial Release

The balena-dash project is great! If you haven't yet had the chance to visit the repo, you certainly should before checking out this one. The main difference between this project and that one, is that this project utilizes ElectronJS to display webpages and other slides. Some things to note about this project:

Performance will be limited on Raspberry Pi devices due to constraints that come with Chromium. Plain and simple: Raspberry Pi GPU + Chromium < WPE performance that the balena-dash project offers. That being said, the chromium experience offers better support for rending elements which require 'supported browsers'.
The latest version of ElectronJS (4.0.0+) will require at least Debian Buster to be installed, due to glibc requirements.
You may be asking,"So why would I choose this project instead of balena-dash?"

Infinate URLs/webpages to load
Custom timeout value
Support for remote screen control/support/viewing