NodeView 1.0 Documentation

Part of the OpenKiosk Project. © 2001 - 2004 by xynopsis

Introduction

What is NodeView
History and goals of the OpenKiosk Project
System requirements
Getting the source
Compilation
Running NodeView

What is NodeView

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.

NodeView main window
Figure 1. NodeView main window

History and goals of the OpenKiosk Project

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.

System Requirements

Nodeview is a server program distributed only by source code. It requires:

  1. Any POSIX-compliant operating system. In short, any recent version of UNIX. This will include but is not limited to Linux, FreeBSD, *BSD, Solaris, Darwin, and Mac OSX.
  2. Qt version 3.x. If you have a recent (> 2002) Linux distribution, this is likely to be included.
  3. The most recent version of Berkeley DB, an embedded database library. As of this writing, it is Berkeley DB 4.
  4. A standards-compliant C++ compiler. NodeView is written in C++ and is tested and developed using GNU development tools and will work perfectly on gcc.

Getting the source

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.

Compilation

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.

Running NodeView

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.

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