Readme¶

The desktop implementation is the most basic platform to run inkBoard on. Most likely you’re familiar with it, as it forms the basis of the emulator as well. However, a lot of options that are guarded off by the emulator are available here.

Installation¶

If running this on a machine where the designer is not installed, and it is not desired to do so, you can follow this process. Otherwise, follow the documentation to install the designer. Ensure you have a compatible Python version installed (likely 3.9 or 3.10), and run

pip install inkBoard

Usage¶

The most basic configuration for this platform is as follows:

device:
  platform: desktop

With the following options being allowed for the configuration:

Option	Type	Description	Default
`name`	str	The name of the device	`None`
`frame_rate`	int	The amount of times the window is updated per second (i.e. fps). Does not need to be incredibly high for simple dashboards.	20
`width`	int	The width of the window, in pixels	1280
`height`	int	The height of the window, in pixels	720
`fullscreen`	bool	Whether to start inkBoard in fullscreen mode. Setting this to `true` means whatever is passed to `width` and `height` is ignored.	`false`
`resizable`	bool	Allows the window to be resized by dragging on the edges	`false`
`cursor`	str	The cursor type to use, must be a tkinter applicable value. See here for availables types.	target
`interactive`	bool	Whether to run in interactive mode (i.e. allowing inputs on the dashboard)	`true`
`network`	bool	Allow the device to poll the network. If installed, may allow for managing the connection too.	`true`
`backlight`	bool	Puts a semi transparent rectangle over the dashboard, simulating a backlight.	`false`
`backlight_alpha`	bool	The maximum allowed opacity of the backlight rectangle. The higher the value, the darker the dashboard will be when the backlight is off.	175
`window_icon`	str	An icon to use as the window’s icon. Must be .ico file. On windows, the taskbar icon does not reflect this icon due to how it groups programmes. Default is the inkBoard icon.	inkBoard

So a simple dashboard that is just a small window on your desktop could look like this:

device:
  platform: desktop
  width: 480
  height: 360

Features present in the config are settable. Aside from that, if interactive is true, the device supports the ‘hold_release’ function, meaning elements can have tap_action, hold_action and hold_release_action defined.