Displaying a calendar

[rjf2019]

We have a selection of school google calendars that are shared with staff. We also have a TV in the staff room that displays the week view for a quick glance.

 

We’ve never quite got this right though. To begin with we had an Android device, which we replaced with a Chromebit (I don’t think they’re made any more.)

 

We have chrome extensions to stop the device from going to sleep and to refresh the page every few minutes. However, due to firewall restrictions, we can’t access it remotely through Chrome Remote Desktop, which can make managing it tricky sometimes.

 

The main issue is that every so often, it will get turned off at the plug or unplugged and it just sits on the desktop, and someone needs to manually visit it and open Chrome again. (And I think possibly enter the password for the google account to log on in the first place.)

 

Has anyone got a solution for a similar situation? I have played around with kiosk mode, but never got it to work correctly, and also tried to get a Rapsberry Pi that would do the same, but never quite got that working either. The disadvantage of the Pi is that if I were to leave I don’t think anyone else would have the experience / interest in them to get it working if it became corrupted etc, and I’ve learned from experience that automated updates aren’t ideal on Raspbian OS.

 

Open to any suggestions.

[dhicks]

We have a selection of school google calendars that are shared with staff. We also have a TV in the staff room that displays the week view for a quick glance.

 

We have our public calendars (for use by parents an so on) available in iCal format, which is then picked up by a script that generates a week-to-view PDF intended to be printed, but you could display it on a screen instead. I can't remember how "public" making a calendar public is, or whether you can export in iCal format for private calendars.

[rjf2019]

I’d forgotten that I had been down a similar route too, as one of the solutions I found wouldn’t allow me to log in to a google calendar. The calendars do need to be kept private, and only accessed via an approved google account.

 

Thanks for the suggestion though.

[TwistedHelixis]

cant you just set the calendar as a default page in chrome and then get chrome to auto run after a re-boot

 

edit- oh its not windows device

Edited April 1, 2021 by TwistedHelixis

[rjf2019]

That post did make me go away and think about whether a windows PC would do it. However, I’m realising that my wish list also extends to a few more things (some of which the Chromebit is doing)

 

* consistently survive being powered off at the mains whilst running

* stay up to date without any need for user interaction

* run for months (or more) without being touched

* boot to the OS as soon as it is powered on at the socket

 

Maybe I am asking for too much...

[Chris_Cook]

I think kiosk mode is what your after. What sort of problems did you have with it?

[LeMarchand]

I use Porteus Kiosk on our library machines, tweaked to open at the main Libresoft page at full screen with no nav bar. You could do something similar, but set to your calendar page.

 

* consistently survive being powered off at the mains whilst running Yep

* stay up to date without any need for user interaction If you used the paid for version, I guess so.

* run for months (or more) without being touched Yep

* boot to the OS as soon as it is powered on at the socket If the BIOS on your device can do this, yes

[mavhc]

https://support.machinemetrics.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001891747-How-do-I-set-up-a-Chrome-OS-Device-in-Kiosk-Mode-

 

You can get an HTML view of a Google calendar from the settings, secret URL so it's not really public

[NotSoFast]

Yodeck on a Pi would be a set and forget solution and is free for one device.