Client Kiosk Customization (5.5 - 12.1)

Description

Several graphical items are customizable in the FileWave Kiosk. In FileWave 5.5, you have the ability to customize these items by deploying a custom directory into the app bundle / fwGUI program directory. When the Kiosk runs, it will look for files in the appropriate paths and load them - allowing you to change some of the look & feel of the Kiosk user interface.

Ingredients

• FileWave Admin (5.5 to 12.1)
• FileWave Server (5.5 to 12.1)
• company icon/logo (preferably a square bright graphic)

Directions

1. The easiest way to deploy these customizations to a client computer is to create a fileset. Use the following filesets as templates, and replace the items inside with your own:

2. Choose Client OS:

   1. Fileset: Customize fwGUI for macOS: Kiosk_Customizer_for_macOS.fileset (1).zip
   2. Fileset: Customize fwGUI for Windows (32 bit): Kiosk_Customizer_for_Windows32.fileset (1).zip
   3. Fileset: Customize fwGUI for Windows (64 bit): Kiosk_Customizer_for_Windows64.fileset.zip

3. Unzip and import needed filesets into FileWave Admin

4. Open the fileset and upload and replace background_icon.png with your own logo or graphic

5. Find the settings.ini file inside the fileset and click the "edit text" button

6. Change the title and other options as needed

7. Save the fileset by closing it. Associate to a test machine, adjust if needed, and then deploy.

Notes

Overriding Kiosk's behavior

window_title = "Your New Window Title"
show_top_downloads = true
hide_system_tray = true

categories (directory) -- create a categories directory.

Then, for each category icon you'd like to override, put a file CATEGORY_NAME.png (e.g. "Applications.png" or "OS Updates.png")

background icon (.png file) -- use a custom icon that will override the standard filewave wave icon.

Place a file called "background_icon.png" in the custom directory to replace the FileWave logo with the logo of your choice. This affects both the Kiosk's background icon and the system tray icon.

Opening the FileWave Kiosk Applet

By default you can open the Kiosk Applet through the system tray icon. If you've set the hide_system_tray to true in settings.ini, you can create a shortcut (Windows) or Automator Action (OSX) to the kiosk executable. You can see the deployment filesets for examples of how to create and deploy theses links.

The Automator Action on OSX uses fwcontrol to show the kiosk dialog. You can simply take the app from the example fileset and customize it.

The shortcut for Windows is an .lnk file that can be created beforehand and can be added to the fileset you want to deploy. The .lnk file can be put in the start menu, like in the example. The shortcut has to link to the actual path of fwgui.exe. When creating it you can use environment variables. So you can link to "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\FileWave\fwGUI.exe -showKiosk" on Windows 64 bit or "%ProgramFiles%\FileWave\fwGUI.exe -showKiosk" on Windows 32 bit machines.  In Windows 8 you can also make a Tile, by placing the shortcut in the "%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs" folder.  If you have a custom icon, don't forget to set the shortcut to use that icon.  Note that a PNG format file cannot be used in a Windows shortcut, however, there are a number of free online image conversion tools that can be used to convert your PNG file to an ICO file.  Then just be sure to also include the ICO file in your fileset.