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A free and open source digital signage solution refreshed in Nix.

A nixified version of Libresage

LibreSignage started in 2018 as a small project aiming to make digital signage accessible to everyone. Since then the project has grown a lot, many new features have been added and even some contributions have been merged from other people. Developing LibreSignage has been a fantastic journey and I'm really grateful for for all code and bug reports submitted by contributors. I have personally spent hundreds of hours working on LibreSignage and enjoyed every bit of that time. It really has been a great 3 years.

That said, unfortunately I don't have the time, resources or interest to continue developing or supporting LibreSignage anymore. As such, after 3rd of Februrary 2021, LibreSignage development and support is officially halted. If I regain my interest in developing LibreSignage I might pick up the project again but for now LibreSignage is unmaintained.

Table Of Contents

`1. Introduction`_

2. Features

3. Project goals

`4. Installation(WIP)`_

5. Documentation (WIP)

Introduction

Digital Signage was everything from large-scale commercial billboards to smaller advertisement displays, notice boards or digital restaurant menus. The possibilities of digital signage are endless. If you need to display periodically changing content to users on a wall-mounted TV for example, digital signage is probably what you are looking for.

LibreSignage was a free and open source, lightweight and easy-to-use digital signage solution for use in schools, cafés, restaurants and shops among others. LibreSignage can be used to manage a network of digital signage displays. Don't let the word network fool you though; a network can be as small as one display on an office wall or as big as 50+ displays spread throughout a larger building.

LibreSignage also includes multi-user support with password authentication and configurable access control to specific features. If a school wants to setup a digital notice board system for example, they might give every teacher an account with slide editing permissions so that teachers could manage the content on the internal digital signage network. This way the teachers could inform students about important things such as upcoming tests for example.

LibreSignage uses a HTTP web server to serve content to the individual signage displays. This means that he displays only need to run a web browser pointed to the central LibreSignage server to actually display content. This approach has a few advantages.

  1. It's simple - No specific hardware/software platform is required. Any system with a fairly recent web browser works.
  2. It's cheap - You don't necessarily need to buy lots of expensive equipment to get started. Just dust off the old PC in the closet, install an up-to-date OS like Linux on it, install a web browser, hide the mouse pointer by default and connect the system to a display. That's it. The only other thing you need is the server, which in fact can run on the same system if needed.
  3. It's reliable - The web infrastructure is already implemented and well tested so why not use it.
  4. It makes editing easy - Displaying content in a browser has the advantage of making slide previewing very simple. You can either use the 'Live Preview' in the editor or check the exact results from the actual 'Display' page that's displayed on the clients too.

LibreSignage is unmaintained as of 3rd of February 2021

Now it is time for a refresh with the goal to make a user friendlier setup and easier maintainence. A nixified version of Libresage.

2. Features

  • Web interface for editing slides and managing the NixSignage instance.
  • Many per slide settings like durations, transitions, etc.
  • Special markup syntax for easily formatting slides.
  • Live preview of the slide markup in the slide editor.
  • Support for embedding remote or uploaded image and video files.
  • Support for scheduling specific slides for a specific time-frame.
  • Collaboration features with other users on the network.
  • Separate slide queues for different sets of signage clients.
  • Multi user support with configurable access control.
  • User management features for admin users in the web interface.
  • Configurable quota for the amount of slides a user can create.
  • Rate limited API for reducing server load.
  • Extensive documentation of features including docs for developers.
  • Extensive configuration possibilities.

3. Project goals

  • Create a lightweight alternative to other digital signage solutions.
  • Create a system that's both easy to set up and easy to use.
  • Write a well documented and modular API so that implementing new user interfaces is simple.
  • Avoid scope creep.
  • Document all features.
  • Keep it simple.
  • Reproducible
  • Actively Maintaned

4. Installation (WIP)

5. Documentation (WIP)