This is a project I have been working on for my house. It makes a nice Photo Display with weather, date and time, and a daily quote . It can be easily customized to suit your needs. Below I will detail the project and how to set it up on a Raspberry Pi. This is an updated version.

Installing Raspberry Pi OS

  1. Download and install Raspberry Pi Imager from Raspberry Pi Software Site
  2. Insert your micro SD card into your computer. (I use a little USB adapter)
  3. Open the software and select “Choose OS”
  4. Select “Raspberry Pi OS (32 Bit)”for the system
  5. Then select “Choose Storage” and select your SD Card
  6. Select “Write” and select “Yes” when prompted
  7. Once it is finished, eject the SD Card and put it in your Raspberry Pi. Connect your Pi to a screen and keyboard / mouse.
  8. Go through the setup process to configure your Pi. Once you are on the desktop screen, follow the next steps.
  9. Select the start menu -> Preferences -> Raspberry Pi Configuration
  10. Select the “Interfaces” tab and enable SSH and VNC

Setting up the Web Server

  1. Open a terminal on the PI. You can also use SSH
  2. Next we will need to install Apache, Open the terminal and run the following steps.
  3. Install – sudo apt-get install apache2 -y
  4. Install PHP – sudo apt-get install php libapache2-mod-php -y
  5. Open the terminal (as you need elevated privileges to move files), and run the command – sudo pcmanfm
  6. Download my files GitHub – maybejarrod/pi-photo-frame: A simple Raspberry Pi photo frame web page built on PHP. extract the zip file and add the files to the explorer windows from step 5 – /var/www/html folder.
  7. Add your own images to the “slideshow-images” folder and the system will automatically find them.

Set up full screen chrome

  1. Back in the terminal, run the code below to disable the screen from going off and disable the mouse cursor when chrome is full screen.
  2. sudo apt-get install -y chromium-browser ttf-mscorefonts-installer unclutter x11-xserver-utils
  3. Now run this line to bring up the auto start file
  4. sudo nano /etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart
  5. In the text editor that pops up change the line @xscreensaver -no-splash to #@xscreensaver -no-splash
  6. Next add the following (Note: The dashes before each word are double dashes – -)
    @chromium-browser –kiosk –start-maximized –incognito http://localhost
    @unclutter
    @xset s off
    @xset s noblank
    @xset -dpms
  7. Press CTRL + o then Enter to save the text editor. Press CTRL + X to exit the text editor.
  8. Run the command sudo chmod 777 -R /var/www/html this will allow the PI to read files from these folders.
  9. Run the command to install XML sudo apt-get install php-xml and select y
  10. You can edit the xml data.jason file to change some of the options.
  11. Restart the PI.
  12. And that’s it you should now have a working information screen / sideshow. Feel free to edit the page however you like. Plug it into a nice monitor and enjoy. You could also share the web folder via samba and add photos via the network. How To: Raspberry Pi Shared Folder
  13. Also if you need to close the sideshow to work on the PI just press Ctrl + Shift + Q
GitHub – maybejarrod/pi-photo-frame: A simple Raspberry Pi photo frame web page built on PHP.
A simple Raspberry Pi photo frame web page built on PHP. – GitHub – maybejarrod/pi-photo-frame: A simple Raspberry Pi photo frame web page built on PHP.