BalenaDash Opening Multiple URL's on boot

[mani13jha]

Hello,
I am using balenaDash to open a URL on my browser using the LAUNCH_URL environment variable to display on the Monitor connected to RPI running balenaOS. But is am limited to opening a single website only on the browser. I want to open multiple websites automatically on my browser. Is there any way to achieve this?
Please, help me.
Thank you.

[mpous]

Hello @mani13jha just to understand your use case, why do you need to open multiple websites automatically in your browser?

Thanks

[mani13jha]

Hello @mpous ,
I want to build a KIOSK setup in which I have 2 websites 1st is to show to Orders List and the 2nd is used to show the product list then use a bash script to simulate the ctrl+Tab so that I can switch b/w both the pages at a certain interval. And I was curious to know if I can achieve this in BalenaDash or not.
Thank You.

[ab77]

You can point the LAUNCH_URL to a web site that implements a carousel, something like Carousel · Bootstrap.

[mani13jha]

@ab77 so does that mean it cannot be implemented the way I wanted it to be ??

[mpous]

@mani13jha indeed! well this is a workaround that might solve your problem.

Does this work for you?

[mani13jha]

@mpous
Thank you for your suggestion; it does work for me. However, it is not quite the solution I was expecting, as my question was primarily for learning purposes.

[phil-d-wilson]

The only other way @mani13jha would be to fork and modify the browser block, so that you can pass in multiple URLs separated by ‘;’ - each one opening in a new tab. The simulate ALT+tab keystrokes to switch between tabs. I remember doing a PoC of this a looooooong time ago, but it didn’t go any further than that.

Phil

[phil-d-wilson]

Actually, you could just change the server.js file so that the URLs are split into a list, and chrome-launcher is called with each one in turn, in a loop with a suitable sleep duration between.

[mani13jha]

@phil-d-wilson
Thank you for the suggestion I will try it out asap and will get back to you with the results

[mani13jha]

Hello @phil-d-wilson, I tried what you suggested here

@phil-d-wilson

Actually, you could just change the server.js file so that the URLs are split into a list, and chrome-launcher is called with each one in turn, in a loop with a suitable sleep duration between.

I implemented below code for POC

const chrome = await chromeLauncher.launch({
startingUrl: “https://www.google.co.in”,//startingUrl,
ignoreDefaultFlags: true,
chromeFlags: flags,
port: REMOTE_DEBUG_PORT,
connectionPollInterval: 1000,
maxConnectionRetries: 120,
userDataDir: ‘1’ === PERSISTENT_DATA ? ‘/data/chromium’ : undefined
});

await sleep(5000);

const chrome2 = await chromeLauncher.launch({
  startingUrl: "https://www.youtube.com",//startingUrl,
  ignoreDefaultFlags: true,
  chromeFlags: flags,
  port: REMOTE_DEBUG_PORT+1,
  connectionPollInterval: 1000,
  maxConnectionRetries: 120,
  userDataDir: '1' === PERSISTENT_DATA ? '/data/chromium' : undefined
});
  
console.log(`Chromium remote debugging tools running on port: ${chrome.port}`);
console.log(`Chromium remote debugging tools running on port: ${chrome2.port}`);
currentUrl = url;

but the result was not what I had expected. What’s happening is that every ChromeLauncher.launch() function opens a new window of Chromium with the specified URL, but the major problem is that the ALT+TAB key is not working. I cannot sift b/w windows without closing one to move to another. Is there something wrong with my implementation?