"The Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) is an open source project founded by Marshall Greenblatt
in 2008 to develop a Web browser control based on the Google Chromium project." (stolen from
project's web site) Over the last few weeks
I've spent a number of hours reading up on how to integrate CEF into an application. The
project's forum provides a nice support area where people
can ask for help and the source distribution comes with an example application called
"cefclient" that uses CEF to show how to build an application with it. The problem that I had,
though, is that while "cefclient" is a nice resource if you're looking for an advanced
implementation on how to integrate CEF as a whole, but if you're looking to start out with a
complete bare-bones implementation that just barely works it's overkill. You're not quite sure
where to start and the example in the
General Usage page of the wiki
is currently either out of date or referencing a different version of CEF than I'm working
with. Once I was able to get the most basic implementation running, I decided it would be good
to document how to do it as the resources I was able to find were either out of date or
unavailable.
After hours and hours of work, I finally have something tangible to show for it! I've had to
change my target device, though. I was spending way too much time trying to get the
Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF3 in my case) to
compile for the Pi (mainly for the ARM, not the Pi specifically) so I decided to change it up
and just use an x86 machine for now. My goal is still to have a cross-platform dashboard but I
thought this way it would be faster to get something working so I don't have a blank screen
sitting here unused.
In typical Erik fashion, I've found yet another project I want to do. For Christmas my parents
gave me a 26" LCD TV that I'd wanted to use to watch TV in my office since I'd been using my
3rd LCD for that and I wanted to be able to actually use that LCD. For awhile I've been looking
for a way to raise the new TV off my desk high enough to reach over my current LCDs, but all of
the arms I'd found wouldn't raise the TV high enough. I finally decided that I'd have to go
with a wall mount (I was avoiding it because I didn't want to put holes in the wall, bother
finding studs, etc), so I went to Best Buy the day after Christmas to get one. They had some
wall mount brackets on sale that supported 15-37" TV's, so I picked up one of those. While I
was thinking about it, I thought I might as well get two and set up a second wall mount screen
since I had to get it all set up for one anyway.
Soooo... I've already found another project I'd like to work on. Some time ago I saw a video of
someone using various old computer parts to play music. I think they had a printer, a scanner,
an oscilloscope and various floppy drives. More recently I saw some videos of people using an
Arduino to play music using 3.5" floppy drives. It was pretty
intriguing and I decided it was time for me to make one (using my Raspberry Pi)!
The first thing many people do these days when they begin messing with electronics is create a
circuit that does nothing but light an LED. I'm no exception. :)
