RokuWeb - PhotoBridge UI in your web browser

TheEndless · Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:18 pm

I've received a number of requests for my simple web front-end for the PhotoBridge UI, so I decided to clean it up a bit and post it for those who are interested.

Follow these steps to install:

- Unzip contents of zip file into a folder named RokuWeb in the root of one of 
  the shares accessible to the Roku

- Telnet into the Roku and issue the following command to enable the fnord web
  server on port 81 (NOTE: This should only be done once!):

  echo "::respawn:/usr/local/bin/tcpserver -DRHPl 0 -u 0 -g 0 0 81 /usr/local/fnord/fnordy" >> /etc/inittab

- Issue the following commands to create the web root (replace servername and
  sharename as appropriate):

  mkdir /home/html
  ln -s /mnt/smb/<servername>/<sharename>/RokuWeb /home/html/RokuWeb

- Reboot the Roku

- Once the Roku has finished rebooting, open a web browser and browse to:

  http://<your_roku_ip>:81/home/RokuWeb/index.html

  NOTE: Internet Explorer cannot correctly display the screenshot bitmap, so
  you may prefer to use a browser like Firefox.

The screengrab utility used to generate the screenshot takes a few seconds to run, so it's a bit sluggish when "Auto-Refresh Screen" is selected. The screenshot can be updated manually by clicking on the screenshot itself. Also note that the screenshot will only display the graphics layer of the display. Video is not rendered.

You can download the files here: http://www.permanence.com/roku/RokuWeb.zip

Let me know if you have any questions...

TheEndless

na9d · Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:51 pm

Thanks Endless! This looks to be great.

Question:

Why use port 81 as the webserver port? My HD1000 already had a web server running on port 80..Brought up a pretty worthless page, but couldn't that just be used instead?

Jon

TheEndless · Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:15 pm

na9d wrote:
Thanks Endless! This looks to be great.

Question:

Why use port 81 as the webserver port? My HD1000 already had a web server running on port 80..Brought up a pretty worthless page, but couldn't that just be used instead?

Jon

Three reasons.. the main one being, I have no idea where the port 80 server is running, so I don't know where to put the files. The second being that I know fnord supports the simple cgi scripts necessary for the page to work. I believe the port 80 web server is part of the Allegro UPnP stuff on the Roku, and I don't know what it can and can't do. And third, the original version of this was set up before UPnP was added to the Roku, at which point it was put on port 80. It was much easier to just switch it to port 81, than to try to figure out how to use port 80.

All of the source is included in the zip, so if you can figure it out, have at it!

TheEndless

na9d · Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:34 pm

Nah. Works great as is!

It does not run on Safari on the Mac. But it works fine under Firefox. Safari doesn't handle everything correctly...

dgburns · Tue Nov 21, 2006 8:48 am

Without delving into installing/configuring this yet, what does this let me do?

na9d · Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:21 am

Remotely control your Photobridge via a web interface.

I plan on using it to control the PB when running it through my Slingbox. With my DVD library moving to my hard drive and MPLAY, I can now watch my DVDs from anywhere in the world using my PB and my Slingbox. I need the web interface because SlingMedia has yet to include IR codes for the PB in their software.

scumball · Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:36 pm

I am not getting a screen shot of the Roku at all. Just the remote. Any ideas?

Set to 720p output on a wired network through a DHCP router. App is working, just no screen shots....

TheEndless · Tue Nov 21, 2006 4:48 pm

scumball wrote:
I am not getting a screen shot of the Roku at all. Just the remote. Any ideas?

Set to 720p output on a wired network through a DHCP router. App is working, just no screen shots....

What browser are you using? Firefox is the only one I've tried that can display the bitmap generated by the screengrab utility.

TheEndless

scumball · Wed Nov 22, 2006 12:45 am

Yes using Firefox on a PC vers. 1.5.0.8

TheEndless · Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:22 am

scumball wrote:
Yes using Firefox on a PC vers. 1.5.0.8

In order to write the screenshot to disk, the Roku needs write access to the share hosting the web pages. Can you confirm that this is the case? If so, is there a screen.bmp file in the RokuWeb folder? It's also entirely possible that it's case sensitive, so make sure the folder/symbolic link is named RokuWeb.

TheEndless

dgburns · Wed Nov 22, 2006 9:49 am

na9d wrote:
Remotely control your Photobridge via a web interface.

Hmmm.... with some free time perhaps I need to check this out. Especially once I get the wires run to the 2nd PB 2 floors up from my PCs/Servers.

I don't have Firefox though. Anyone tried this with IE7 yet?

TheEndless · Wed Nov 22, 2006 10:15 am

dgburns wrote:
na9d wrote:
Remotely control your Photobridge via a web interface.

Hmmm.... with some free time perhaps I need to check this out. Especially once I get the wires run to the 2nd PB 2 floors up from my PCs/Servers.

I don't have Firefox though. Anyone tried this with IE7 yet?

Yeah.. it doesn't work in IE7 either. I'm looking into a way to convert the screenshot image to something other than an uncompressed bitmap.

TheEndless

soiaf · Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:06 am

TheEndless wrote:
Yeah.. it doesn't work in IE7 either. I'm looking into a way to convert the screenshot image to something other than an uncompressed bitmap.

TheEndless

Have you looked at the code I mentioned in this link, compiles/works fine on the PhotoBridge.

http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5528&highlight=bmp

TheEndless · Wed Nov 22, 2006 7:00 pm

soiaf wrote:
TheEndless wrote:
Yeah.. it doesn't work in IE7 either. I'm looking into a way to convert the screenshot image to something other than an uncompressed bitmap.

TheEndless

Have you looked at the code I mentioned in this link, compiles/works fine on the PhotoBridge.

http://www.rokulabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5528&highlight=bmp

Thanks for the pointer, but I've written my own screen capture utility now that's a bit faster and can capture to either a PNG or an IE friendly BMP. I've updated the "app" so it now works in both IE and Firefox. The link is the same as the one in the first post of this thread.

TheEndless

takmad · Sat Nov 25, 2006 9:21 pm

Endless, nice work. I go it up and running in 10 minutes. Had to assure the directory was named correctly (it unzipped as "RokuWeb Folder"). This will be slick with my two HD1000s.

Everytime I use one of your apps - from SlimRoku to MPlay - it makes we wonder what Rokulabs could have done with this device. Argghh...

Meanwhile, thanks for the work for those of us still trying to get more value out of their devices.

TAKMAD

RokuWeb - PhotoBridge UI in your web browser

RokuWeb - PhotoBridge UI in your web browser

Works for me...

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