How to install a simple web browser

Applicable for

Important

The simple web browser, subject of this article, is not part of STM32MPU ecosystem releases, for which ST provides some support.
This article only provides, as example, some helper guidelines (tips): you may need to make some adaptations depending on your system setup.

A simple web browser, based on Qt5, can be easily installed using the package repository for OpenSTLinux distribution service.

2 solutions exist:

Qt^® application
Qt^® Python™ application

1. qt-wpe-simple-browser[edit | edit source]

1.1. Installation[edit | edit source]

 apt-get update
 apt-get install qt-wpe-simple-browser

1.2. Usage[edit | edit source]

 qt-wpe-simple-browser <url http://>

2. python3-pyqt5[edit | edit source]

2.1. Installation[edit | edit source]

 apt-get update
 apt-get install python3-pyqt5

Create the web_browser.py script:

# web_browser.py
# Copyright (c) STMicroelectronics
# License: BSD-3-Clause
from PyQt5.QtCore import *
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import *
from PyQt5.QtGui import *
from PyQt5.QtWebKitWidgets import *

import sys

class MainWindow(QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        super(MainWindow,self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)

        self.setWindowTitle(sys.argv[1])
        self.browser = QWebView()
        self.browser.setUrl( QUrl(sys.argv[1]) )
        self.setCentralWidget(self.browser)
        self.show()

QApplication.setAttribute(Qt.AA_ShareOpenGLContexts)
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
window = MainWindow()
app.exec_()

2.2. Usage[edit | edit source]

 python3 web_browser.py  <url http://>

3. Display platform[edit | edit source]

Two solutions exist to display the web browser:

using eglfs
using Wayland

3.1. wayland[edit | edit source]

Weston must be started. If you have stopped it, you can restart Weston with the following command

 systemctl start weston@root

Install qtwayland

 apt-get install qtwayland

Set Wayland egl as display platform

 export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland-egl

And set the following variable

 export QML2_IMPORT_PATH='/usr/lib/qt5/qml/'

Launch the Python web browser

 qt-wpe-simple-browser <url http://>

or

 python3 web_browser.py  <url http://> --qwindowgeometry <width>x<height>

3.2. eglfs[edit | edit source]

Stop the Weston application

 systemctl stop weston@root

Set eglfs as display platform

 export QT_QPA_PLATFORM=eglfs

And set the following variables

 export QML2_IMPORT_PATH='/usr/lib/qt5/qml/'
 export QT_QPA_EGLFS_ALWAYS_SET_MODE='1'

Launch the web browser

 qt-wpe-simple-browser <url http://>

or

 python3 web_browser.py  <url http://>

Information

With HDMI connection, it is advised to use the following kms eglfs_config.json config file in order to avoid cursor rendering issue.

{
  "device": "/dev/dri/card0",
  "hwcursor": false,
  "pbuffers": true,
  "outputs": [
    {
      "name": "HDMI1",
      "mode": "1280x720"
    }
  ]
}

Set Qt variable to use the json config file:

Board $> export QT_QPA_EGLFS_KMS_CONFIG='/home/root/eglfs_config.json'