Download Pertelian Console and source
What it?
Outputs text to a Pertelian display from a file, program, command line or the web.
I wrote it because I was frustrated with the way the device rendered weather data by default:
There was lots of horrible horizontal scrolling and almost impossible to get useful weather information at a glance: one would have to wait and watch it for a minute for the right information to scroll into view.
Using PertelianConsole and a web-based PHP script which utilises Yr.no’s weather data, it now shows concise, useful weather information:
Current temperature is always shown on the top-right and otherwise shows temperature and forecast for morning, noon and night. The page alternates between today, tomorrow and the day after.
Getting started
PertelianConsole (PeCo) is a command line tool designed to be run from batch scripts or the Windows’ Scheduled Tasks service. Thus, you have to pass in options for anything to happen. The program assumes the Pertelian is connected and drivers are installed. If your display works with the bundled Pertelian app, it should work with PertelianConsole.
Example 1. XML Content
Display content from a web-based XML source, runs for three hours before automatically exiting. Content is looped every 10 seconds and the console window is hidden so it runs in the background.
PertelianConsole.exe --xml=http://thestaticvoid.net/toy/weather/weather.php?render=pertelian --runFor=3h --loopInterval=10s --fastHide
Example 2. Piped output
Shows the contents of the current directory scrolling on the display. The ‘stream’ flag is require to tell PeCo to read from the standard input. Note that input is not wrapped to fit screen width.
dir | PertelianConsole.exe --stream
Example 3. Display text from the command line
Displays “line one” on the first line, and “line two” on the second. Note the use of \n to control output. PeCo will letter-wrap text.
PertelianConsole.exe --text="line one\nline two"
Example 4. File input
Reads a text file and displays it for five minutes, showing each screenful of content for one second.
PertelianConsole.exe --file=test.txt --stayRunning=5m --scrollInterval=1s
Tips
- To get an overview of PeCo’s options, just run it without arguments and you’ll get some help text.
- Display is cleared and turned off when the program exits. Consider using the ‘runFor’ parameter to keep the program running.
- See the Url in Example 1 for an example of the XML format. Alternatively refer to src/Reader.cs
- The ‘loop’ flag continues to show the text (looping for multi-page input) for as long as the program is running
