Kiosks have been present in the world since the 13th century. They were small, separated garden pavilions open on some or all sides primarily used for trade at markets. Their modern alternatives are the information kiosks running custom kiosk software designed to allow users to perform a set of tasks while preventing them from accessing system functions.
Kiosks are typically custom hardware setups that are fairly expensive to create, and are not really accessible for small organizations. But what if you could turn a mobile device into a kiosk for your Drupal site for free?
The Drupal Kiosk App makes it easy to build online content management systems that interact with objects in the real world. A combination of QR code scanning, a built-in browser, and persistent in-app authentication turns iPads into an information kiosk for your Drupal CMS. The app interacts with your Drupal website using standard QR codes that encode URLs for your website. This allows Drupal developers to easily interact with their website. They only need to configure the application. No need to learn iOS or to get a iOS developer account. The application has 2 main screens:
- Scanner screen
- Browser screen
The scanner screen shows a camera stream that is searching for readable QR codes that encode URLs. After a successful QR Code scan the app evaluates if it’s possible and allowed to open the given URL and if so, forwards the user to the browser screen and loads the encoded web page. The communication channel is REST based using Services module and the Drupal iOS SDK. We take pride in contributing to this SDK, you can read more about it here. You can download the application from the iTunes App Store for free and you can test it on our Drupal site, just follow our tutorial. Currently Drupal Kiosk only support iPads, but if you would like to see it on iPhones or Android devices, or you would like to contribute to this project drop us an email at: info@pronovix.com Picture from Wikipedia: Bakiev flyer in kiosk window.jpg
