Browser full-screen and locked

[groovyjon]

I'd like to put a nice touchscreen monitor in our shop with our website permanently displaying. Available for customers to browse but also for the staff to show customers extra info on products they're interested in.

If there's no keyboard or mouse attached (or maybe a wireless one hidden beneath the counter) is there any way mischievous customers can switch to another running program, or bring up the start menu, or restore the browser so they can access the toolbar (and then type in other url's).

I could keep it off the internet and run the website on a local apache instance, but the database is constantly changing with stock availability etc so not really an option.

 

[jfalgate]

Chrome (browser) has a kiosk mode. Can't post external links so have copied instructions from a blog. Not sure they are 100% clear - I havn't tried it myself but certainly looks to be the the answer for you!

Here are steps for running Google Chrome in full screen Kiosk Mode on a Windows PC:

1. Right click on your Desktop and go to New > Shortcut

2. Browse to the chrome.exe file (depending on your set up, it might be found here: usernameAppDataLocalGoogleChromeApplicationchrome.exe) and click Next

3. Type a name for the shortcut (ie “Chrome Kiosk Mode”) and click Finish

4. Right click on the new shortcut on your Desktop and go to Properties

5. At the end of your Target replace chrome.exe with “chrome.exe –kiosk h t t p :// [enter URL here]” and click OK

6. Double-click the shortcut on your Desktop and it will launch the full screen Kiosk

7. To quit the Kiosk, press Alt + F4 on your keyboard.

 

[Paul_Rosser]

Internet Explorer also has the same, to load microsoft.com in kiosk mode in start/run you need to type -

iexplore -k www.microsoft.com

 

[groovyjon]

Thanks guys, I'd never heard of "kiosk mode" before!

 

[groovyjon]

Actually, unless I'm missing something, isn't this just running a browser in full screen mode which you can do by hitting F11? I'm not sure what the command line instructions with extra parameters does any different.

 

[OfficeFurnitureHub]

Not sure on the OS, but you could probably modify the hosts file to ensure that only your site can be accessed.

 

[Paul_Rosser]

Not sure on the OS, but you could probably modify the hosts file to ensure that only your site can be accessed.

Would be easier to point your DNS server nowhere (or 127.0.0.1) and put into the host file any sites you want to allow access to.