Re: Proposed widget type: image

On 22.01.2014 23:28, Scott Meharg wrote:
> If interested, attached is a patch that adds a new widget type for
> displaying images files on graphic LCDs that use the glcd driver.
>
> Only PNG image files are supported.  glcd_render_image attempts to
> transform the image to 24 bits/pixel and transparency is removed by
> compositing against a white background.  Any pixel not white will be
> turned on on the LCD.
>
> If need be I will work on updating the documentation.
>
> Would this be considered a new version of the API?
>

Hi Scott,

First of all - I am still vary and have not decided about it. Some more
feedback from others would be great.

Some thoughts:

The client needs to know which files are available on the server. I
imagine a media center software (e.g. XBMC) that displays some radio or
TV station logos via LCDd running on the same machine. This sounds like
a nice extension to LCDproc, but is limited to graphical drivers. But
using serdisplib a number of graphical LCD can be used.

In the past we denied code changes that output arbitrary files on the
display for security reasons. At some time it was suggested to read a
text file during start-up (when LCDd still runs as root).

In your scenario (during normal operation) LCDd does not run as root
anymore. If permissions are set correctly LCDd will not be able access
files it shouldn't be able to read. And you are not reading text, but
PNG files only.

Still - I do not want to make LCDproc a full graphical solution. There
exists other and more advanced software for this purpose.

Regards,
Markus