Building a Web App

Why develop a Web App?

Web Apps are displayed on each Player, so they have several benefits over providing the same experience over an online HTML web page.

Web App pros:

  • They are online, so they will reload automatically and display the latest info.
  • Have no CORS restrictions. You can create Apps that pull in data from any online website. E.g., retrieve stock market prices from an online web page without any prior arrangement and show them as you wish.
  • Are playback-aware, so they are notified when they are “loaded,” “shown,” and “hidden.” This makes better use of bandwidth.
  • Web Pages can store data that survive a reboot.
  • Can log in to any web page that requires Authorization and display any graph or report of your choice

What are the requirements?

Anyone who can develop an HTML5/Javascript web page can develop an App. No special skills are required. We also provide you with some required tools:

  • Full documentation on how Apps work
  • Complete examples you can download and test

Creating a Web App

Make sure you read the next section of the Developer’s guide to create your App or use one of our samples. After you are done, then you can upload it to your account.

To create an HTML App, go to “Custom Apps” and select to add a new HTML app. 

In the form that appears:

  1. Type in the Name of the app
  2. Add an optional Description for it.
  3. Add the Web page’s URL
  4. Choose an icon for your app.
  5. Set the Zoom factor (%), which is set to 100% by default. By altering it, you zoom in (>100) or out (<100) of the webpage by the given percentage.
  6. Auto-Adjust Zoom, which is also enabled by default, adjust the zoom for monitors with a width other than 1920 pixels so that they look the same.
  7. Disable Private Browsing: Web pages by default open in private browsing mode to prevent caching issues. You can use the toggle to disable it.
  8. Enable Chrome: Some modern webpages do not work properly with WebKit. Currently, when using Chromium, the webpage can’t have transparency.
  9. Retain Session Data: By default, this feature is disabled when using Chromium. If you want to keep the same session for this webpage, you can click on the toggle to enable it. Upon enabling this option, the “Disable Private Browser” option will be enabled as well.
  10. Enable Flash Player: By default, this feature is disabled when using Chromium. If a webpage requires a flash player to display the web-page content, you can click on the toggle to enable it.
  11. Scripting Engine (Run Custom Script): You can click on the toggle to enable the scripting engine feature, where you can add scripts to run after a webpage is loaded to modify and navigate it as you wish. 
  12. Write down the UI Configuration
  13. Click “Save” to upload your custom app.