Display a configurable grid of information and images on a Raspberry Pi (or other GNU/Linux) framebuffer.

Clock, image carousel, and updating webcam snapshots...

Simple network device monitoring...

A copy of the information grid may optionally be made available via HTTP which will refresh every minute.

fbinfogrid builds and runs successfully on an original Raspberry Pi Model A from 2013, so it should run fine on all modern platforms. It should work fine on any other GNU/Linux platorm that supports a standard framebuffer device and the Go language.

Type ./fbinfogrid -h for help.

E.g. ./fbinfogrid -config configs/demoSpans.json -http 8080

You may supply a config.json file in the working directory or you can use the -config option to specify a grid configuration file.

If any cell has "refreshsecs" defined to be > 0 then the program will not exit until it is killed, otherwise the program will end once the grid has been drawn unless there are multiple pages (see below).

See the included JSON files in the configs folder for configuration examples.

Note that fbinfogrid takes the pixel dimensions of the specified framebuffer and uses them to calculate the layout (i.e. cell sizes) by simple division. There is no attempt made to intelligently 'flow' or fit the grid; you must ensure that the configuration you specify makes sense for your current framebuffer settings. You can use the standard fbset program to check and alter the characteristics of the framebuffer. Also, the image in the HTTP copy of the grid will have the same pixel dimensions as the framebuffer.

A configuration describes page(s) of cells...

Page attributes are...

See demoTwoPages.json for a multiple-page example.

Every cell must have row, col, and celltype specified.

You may also specify rowspan and colspan for any cell; see demoSpans.json for an example. Note that the behaviour of overlapping cells is currently undefined.

Currently defined information cell types and associated attributes are...

(* these attributes must be specified)

(** must specify a sources array - see demoCarousel.json)

Image cells that refresh (i.e. have a non-zero refreshsecs) reload the image on each refresh, so if the underlying file changes that change will appear on the next refresh.

Scaling may be one of "fill", "fit", or "resize" (default). Fill and fit maintain the aspect ratio of the image, so there may be some cropping or borders apparent; resize scales the image to exactly fit the cell, so there may be some distortion.