raspberry pi lcd display case quotation

first of all let me say that I dont have any experience with a Raspberry, Arduino etc. at all, and also dont own any equipment yet. This is more a general question to the more experienced members here, so please bear with me if this comes across as a big unfocused

What I would like to do is built a keystand for my girlfriend in a NES case, that includes a function to display random quotes in the cardridge slot on key press. Basically, everytime she leaves the house in the morning she can press a button and a nice random quote from storage will be displayed on a LED. Thats it!

I have read through a lot of post here and other forums, and I found things similar to this (I found a post about random fortune cookie quotes), but those were all a bit more focused on the coding in itself, which is not really accessible to me (i have only very basic programming knowledge, and I am not sure if I have time to learn the basics fully). I am trying to catch up on everything myself, but thought that asking my be helpful. So I just wanted to ask for opinions on the following things:

3) Is there are generally very well regarded resource for such tutorials? I have started reading the "Beginning with Raspberry Thread" here, but just in case I thought it might be good to ask.

I recently received a new Raspberry Piand wanted to create an Intro to Raspberry Pi project. My Pi included a 16x2 LCD display and a Wi-Pi Card so I created the Wireless Raspberry Pi Powered Joke Machine. Just press the push-buttons and the machine will look up a one-liner and scroll through it. (Admission of guilt here...I originally thought it would be neat to create a desk-toy that could display inspiring and educational famous quotes...the Joke Machine cando this, but when I found I could just as easily generate one-liners, I decided that would be more fun :-) )

This Step by Step Instructable walks you through the process of setting up a new Raspberry Pi, adding the the PiFace Control and Display LCD, the WiPi wireless and the provided python script TheQuoteMachine.py which looks up jokes and quotes on a free service called iheartquotes.com. it"ll also describe how to access your Pi without need for a keyboard or Display using VNC remote access.

A Raspberry Pi comes with "Do it Yourself Filling", that is you decide what flavor of Linux you want on it. An easy way to do this is to use a NOOBS SD card to install Linux

NOOBS stands for New Out of the Box Software. You can buy a pre-installed NOOBS SD card (what I used for this project) or download your own from http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads.

Next I set up VNC so that I could access my Pi from my normal laptop computer. Vnc is a process that allows me to use Graphical applications without connecting any screen up to the Pi itself.  Here"s how to set it up Install vncserver by running this command on the Pi:

connect from your laptop using the ipaddress and port of the vncserver (and the password you created above) To use vnc when you don"t have a Monitor on the Pi, you can either set up the Pi so vncserver starts automatically at boot time, or connect to the pi by using ssh or winscp to log on commandline style to the Pi and start the server.

Python is already installed on the Raspberry Pi, so to run my Quote Machine script you simply need to Download the script from instructables.com (to your Raspberry Pi)

Now you can run /home/pi/bin/TheQuoteMachine.py  It will connect to the free service http://www.iheartquotes.com and display hilarious one-liners. It does this by running a URL that returns the one-liners back in straight text, splitting the text up into 16 character wide segments and then monitoring the PiFace button events that let you scroll up and down through those segments.

Button 4 is the Quit ButtonInstall Your Quote Machine in a Project Box -steps vary depending on the box you use I used a Sharpie to mark where the LCD display should be mounted on the project box

Im having an issue it might be because I don"t have the pi face installed into it yet but the code Chomd +x /home/pi/TheQuoteMachine.py it doesn"t work I tried to run it in the terminal and python0

Nice one , I was also struck with same idea to create something called "words of wisdom" with Pi. But I would rather like to use C for programming Pi. I"m using WiringPi for GPIO control , can you plase tell me is it possible to replicate that with C. Thanks0

This is a really cool idea! I like the prospect of the joke machine. I had an idea for another function. I am thinking about taking your design and making a Fortune Cookie Machine. I found this little metal fortune cookie at a bookstore and I thought it would be cool to make a device like this and attach the metal cookie thing to it and make it generate fortunes. I have not worked with a Raspberry Pi yet, but I think this would be a really cool project to start working with it, when I can spare some cash to get supplies.

thx! I"d like to see what the fortunecookie looks like. The website I get jokes from also has fortunes. You could find a thermal printer and print them out! surplus stores sometimes have them as old credit card machines. use a model a pi to save some money and store the quotes on the sd card to reduce the need for the Wii pi csrd. Good luck!0

Make sure your kit is fully protected with a Raspberry Pi 4 display case. Designed to encase the whole screen, it wraps around your Raspberry Pi effortlessly, offering protection whether you’re traveling or setting up away from home. Making the whole unit completely portable, why not take a look at what makes the Pi 4 screen case a must-have item.

Rather than plug your Raspberry Pi into a TV, or connect via SSH (or remote desktop connections via VNC or RDP), you might have opted to purchase a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display.

Straightforward to set up, the touchscreen display has so many possibilities. But if you"ve left yours gathering dust in a drawer, there"s no way you"re going to experience the full benefits of such a useful piece of kit.

The alternative is to get it out of the drawer, hook your touchscreen display to your Raspberry Pi, and reformat the microSD card. It"s time to work on a new project -- one of these ideas should pique your interest.

Let"s start with perhaps the most obvious option. The official Raspberry Pi touchscreen display is seven inches diagonal, making it an ideal size for a photo frame. For the best results, you"ll need a wireless connection (Ethernet cables look unsightly on a mantelpiece) as well as a Raspberry Pi-compatible battery pack.

Several options are available to create a Raspberry Pi photo frame, mostly using Python code. You might opt to script your own, pulling images from a pre-populated directory. Alternatively, take a look at our guide to making your own photo frame with beautiful images and inspiring quotes. It pulls content from two Reddit channels -- images from /r/EarthPorn and quotes from /r/ShowerThoughts -- and mixes them together.

Rather than wait for the 24th century, why not bring the slick user interface found in Star Trek: The Next Generation to your Raspberry Pi today? While you won"t be able to drive a dilithium crystal powered warp drive with it, you can certainly control your smart home.

In the example above, Belkin WeMo switches and a Nest thermostat are manipulated via the Raspberry Pi, touchscreen display, and the InControlHA system with Wemo and Nest plugins. ST:TNG magic comes from an implementation of the Library Computer Access and Retrieval System (LCARS) seen in 1980s/1990s Star Trek. Coder Toby Kurien has developed an LCARS user interface for the Pi that has uses beyond home automation.

Building a carputer has long been the holy grail of technology DIYers, and the Raspberry Pi makes it far more achievable than ever before. But for the carputer to really take shape, it needs a display -- and what better than a touchscreen interface?

Setting up a Raspberry Pi carputer also requires a user interface, suitable power supply, as well as working connections to any additional hardware you employ. (This might include a mobile dongle and GPS for satnav, for instance.)

Now here is a unique use for the Pi and its touchscreen display. A compact, bench-based tool for controlling hardware on your bench (or kitchen or desk), this is a build with several purposes. It"s designed to help you get your home automation projects off the ground, but also includes support for a webcam to help you record your progress.

The idea here is simple. With just a Raspberry Pi, a webcam, and a touchscreen display -- plus a thermal printer -- you can build a versatile photo booth!

Various projects of this kind have sprung up. While the versions displayed above uses a thermal printer outputting a low-res image, you might prefer to employ a standard color photo printer. The wait will be longer, but the results better!

How about a smart mirror for your Raspberry Pi touchscreen display project? This is basically a mirror that not only shows your reflection, but also useful information. For instance, latest news and weather updates.

Naturally, a larger display would deliver the best results, but if you"re looking to get started with a smart mirror project, or develop your own from scratch, a Raspberry Pi combined with a touchscreen display is an excellent place to start.

Many existing projects are underway, and we took the time to compile six of them into a single list for your perusal. Use this as inspiration, a starting point, or just use someone else"s code to build your own information-serving smart mirror.

Want to pump some banging "toons" out of your Raspberry Pi? We"ve looked at some internet radio projects in the past, but adding in a touchscreen display changes things considerably. For a start, it"s a lot easier to find the station you want to listen to!

This example uses a much smaller Adafruit touchscreen display for the Raspberry Pi. You can get suitable results from any compatible touchscreen, however.

Alternatively, you might prefer the option to integrate your Raspberry Pi with your home audio setup. The build outlined below uses RuneAudio, a Bluetooth speaker, and your preferred audio HAT or shield.

Requiring the ProtoCentral HealthyPi HAT (a HAT is an expansion board for the Raspberry Pi) and the Windows-only Atmel software, this project results in a portable device to measure yours (or a patient"s) health.

With probes and electrodes attached, you"ll be able to observe and record thanks to visualization software on the Pi. Whether this is a system that can be adopted by the medical profession remains to be seen. We suspect it could turn out to be very useful in developing nations, or in the heart of infectious outbreaks.

We were impressed by this project over at Hackster.io, but note that there are many alternatives. Often these rely on compact LCD displays rather than the touchscreen solution.

Many home automation systems have been developed for, or ported to, the Raspberry Pi -- enough for their own list. Not all of these feature a touchscreen display, however.

One that does is the Makezine project below, that hooks up a Raspberry Pi running OpenHAB, an open source home automation system that can interface with hundreds of smart home products. Our own guide shows how you can use it to control some smart lighting. OpenHAB comes with several user interfaces. However, if they"re not your cup of tea, an LCARS UI theme is available.

Another great build, and the one we"re finishing on, is a Raspberry Pi-powered tablet computer. The idea is simple: place the Pi, the touchscreen display, and a rechargeable battery pack into a suitable case (more than likely 3D printed). You might opt to change the operating system; Raspbian Jessie with PIXEL (nor the previous desktop) isn"t really suitable as a touch-friendly interface. Happily, there are versions of Android available for the Raspberry Pi.

This is one of those projects where the electronics and the UI are straightforward. It"s really the case that can pose problems, if you don"t own a 3D printer.

For instance, a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B has a higher power requirement (2.5A) and, thus, necessitates a specific power brick. It will definitely still work, but a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

The ideal board for the job is the £9.30 or AU$14.96) for the board. To set up and connect the Raspberry Pi, you will need a short HDMI cable and a microSD card of at least 8GB.

Finally, you will need supplies to mount the Raspberry Pi, the monitor"s power supply, all the cables and the female end of the extension cord on the back of the monitor. I used two-sided mounting tape. And I used duct tape to keep the excess cord attached as tightly to the back of the monitor as possible.

Typically, there isn"t enough room to install a Raspberry Pi inside the original backplate -- unless you"re using a Pi Zero W. Even then, the excess cords and the power supply for the monitor won"t fit. The monitor will sit closer to the wall without the back cover, so it"s best to discard it.

Connect the Raspberry Pi to the HDMI port on the monitor and -- without plugging in the extension cord -- connect the power cables to both the Raspberry Pi and the monitor. Use this to figure out the best layout of all the parts to keep everything as slim as possible.

As for the picture-hanging wire, there were no decent places to connect on the Dell monitor I used, so I drilled one hole on either side of the rear bezel that held the back cover on. This is where you might have to get creative, since no two monitors are the same.

Surprisingly, this project doesn"t require any special code for the Raspberry Pi. In fact, it will be running on Raspbian OS, a Linux distribution specifically for the Raspberry Pi.

DAKboard is the web interface used to display all the information on the monitor. It can be set up from the Raspberry Pi or from a computer, phone or tablet.

For background options, you can choose between a host of different sources, such as Instagram, Google Photos, Dropbox, OneDrive, Bing, Flickr, etc. After that, you can connect up to two ICAL calendars for free, select between Yahoo and AccuWeather for the forecast source, add a single RSS feed for rotating headlines, and connect Todoist, Wunderlist or Microsoft To-Do as a task manager to display and add a custom message to the DAKboard.

The idea is that, when powered on, the Raspberry Pi will automatically boot to your DAKboard. If you want to hang the monitor vertically instead of horizontally, you will also need to rotate the display.

First, power on the Raspberry Pi, open Terminal and type in sudo raspi-config. Once in the configuration tool:Go to Boot Options > Desktop Autologin Desktop GUI and press Enter.

Next, you will want to edit the config.txt file to rotate the screen 90 degrees. In Terminal, type sudo nano /boot/config.txt and press Enter. This opens the config file in the nano text editor. Add these lines to the end of the file (without the bullet points):# Display orientation. Landscape = 0, Portrait = 1

Finally, to force the screen to stay on and automatically boot with dakboard.com loaded in Chromium, type sudo nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart and press Enter. Inside nano, add these four lines (without the bullet points):@xset s off

Once the Raspberry Pi has fully rebooted, use a connected mouse and keyboard to log in to DAKboard. Click Login and enter your credentials. Your DAKboard should load with your previously configured settings. If you want to change anything, click the settings cog in the upper right corner of the display (move the cursor to make it appear).

Hang the monitor on the wall and you"ll have yourself a digital clock and calendar, the week"s forecast, important headlines and beautiful pictures on display all day.

DAKboard is a great way to set up a Raspberry Pi display in a hurry. It"s easy and user-friendly and it looks great. However, it has its limitations and encourages users to upgrade to Premium to unlock the best features.

For instance, a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B has a higher power requirement (2.5A) and, thus, necessitates a specific power brick. It will definitely still work, but a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

The ideal board for the job is the £9.30 or AU$14.96) for the board. To set up and connect the Raspberry Pi, you will need a short HDMI cable and a microSD card of at least 8GB.

Finally, you will need supplies to mount the Raspberry Pi, the monitor"s power supply, all the cables and the female end of the extension cord on the back of the monitor. I used two-sided mounting tape. And I used duct tape to keep the excess cord attached as tightly to the back of the monitor as possible.

Typically, there isn"t enough room to install a Raspberry Pi inside the original backplate -- unless you"re using a Pi Zero W. Even then, the excess cords and the power supply for the monitor won"t fit. The monitor will sit closer to the wall without the back cover, so it"s best to discard it.

Connect the Raspberry Pi to the HDMI port on the monitor and -- without plugging in the extension cord -- connect the power cables to both the Raspberry Pi and the monitor. Use this to figure out the best layout of all the parts to keep everything as slim as possible.

As for the picture-hanging wire, there were no decent places to connect on the Dell monitor I used, so I drilled one hole on either side of the rear bezel that held the back cover on. This is where you might have to get creative, since no two monitors are the same.

Surprisingly, this project doesn"t require any special code for the Raspberry Pi. In fact, it will be running on Raspbian OS, a Linux distribution specifically for the Raspberry Pi.

DAKboard is the web interface used to display all the information on the monitor. It can be set up from the Raspberry Pi or from a computer, phone or tablet.

For background options, you can choose between a host of different sources, such as Instagram, Google Photos, Dropbox, OneDrive, Bing, Flickr, etc. After that, you can connect up to two ICAL calendars for free, select between Yahoo and AccuWeather for the forecast source, add a single RSS feed for rotating headlines, and connect Todoist, Wunderlist or Microsoft To-Do as a task manager to display and add a custom message to the DAKboard.

The idea is that, when powered on, the Raspberry Pi will automatically boot to your DAKboard. If you want to hang the monitor vertically instead of horizontally, you will also need to rotate the display.

First, power on the Raspberry Pi, open Terminal and type in sudo raspi-config. Once in the configuration tool:Go to Boot Options > Desktop Autologin Desktop GUI and press Enter.

Next, you will want to edit the config.txt file to rotate the screen 90 degrees. In Terminal, type sudo nano /boot/config.txt and press Enter. This opens the config file in the nano text editor. Add these lines to the end of the file (without the bullet points):# Display orientation. Landscape = 0, Portrait = 1

Finally, to force the screen to stay on and automatically boot with dakboard.com loaded in Chromium, type sudo nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart and press Enter. Inside nano, add these four lines (without the bullet points):@xset s off

Once the Raspberry Pi has fully rebooted, use a connected mouse and keyboard to log in to DAKboard. Click Login and enter your credentials. Your DAKboard should load with your previously configured settings. If you want to change anything, click the settings cog in the upper right corner of the display (move the cursor to make it appear).

Hang the monitor on the wall and you"ll have yourself a digital clock and calendar, the week"s forecast, important headlines and beautiful pictures on display all day.

DAKboard is a great way to set up a Raspberry Pi display in a hurry. It"s easy and user-friendly and it looks great. However, it has its limitations and encourages users to upgrade to Premium to unlock the best features.

Wide Compatibility: The case is designed to perfectly house Raspberry Pi 4 B, 3 B/B+ with a small touch screen. NOTE: Raspberry Pi motherboards are not included.

Features: 480 x 320 display resolution (HDMI input resolution supports 480*320 to 1920*1280); Refreshes up to 30 frames per second; 3.5mm audio/headphone jack; The backlight can be adjusted and turned on/off.

Effective Cooling Design: It comes with a copper heatsink for the CPU, the display board is mounted a 25mm×25mm brushless quiet fan, and cuts for air outlets, all of them cool your pi 4 effectively.

Plug & Play: Don"t need to reboot the Pi when connected, it doesn"t require any external power supply, and it displays with no need for the driver. Please note the touch function needs to install the driver.

Kuman 3.5" Inch TFT LCD Display 480x320 RGB Pixels Touch Screen Monitor for Raspberry Pi 3 2 Model B B+ A+ A Module SPI Interface with Touch Pen SC06 (3.5 inch Touch Screen) : A…

This repository contains all the code for interfacing with a 16x2 character I2C liquid-crystal display (LCD). This accompanies my Youtube tutorial: Raspberry Pi - Mini LCD Display Tutorial.

During the installation, pay attention to any messages about python and python3 usage, as they inform which version you should use to interface with the LCD driver. For example:

It is possible to define in CG RAM memory up to 8 custom characters. These characters can be prompted on LCD the same way as any characters from the characters table. Codes for the custom characters are unique and as follows:

This is demo showcases how extended strings could be used. Extended strings can contain special placeholders of form {0xFF}, that is, a hex code of the symbol wrapped within curly brackets. Hex codes of various symbols can be found in the following characters table:

For example, the hex code of the symbol ö is 0xEF, and so this symbol could be printed on the second row of the display by using the {0xEF} placeholder, as follows:

This demo uses ping and nc (netcat) to monitor the network status of hosts and services, respectively. Hosts and services can be modified by editing their respective dictionaries:

exchangerate-api.com / free.currencyconverterapi.com: There are a lot of currency apis but these ones offer free currency exchange info. Both are used, one as main, the other as backup. Requires an API key to use.

In order to use the script, you need to get API key tokens for both exchange rate services and the weather api. Once you"ve done that, edit the script to put your tokens in the USER VARIABLES section.

A TFT touch screen combines the fundamental elements of a raspberry pi lcd with the advanced imagery TFT technology. These are the variants of raspberry pi lcd displays that most consumers see and use on a daily basis. While TFT displays use more energy than standard monochrome LCD displays, many models provide brighter and more detailed visuals than conventional screens.

Explore the extensive selection of wholesale raspberry pi lcd LCD displays, TFT, and HMI that can be used across a range of industries, including domestic, medical, industrial, automotive, and many others. You can choose from a number of standard industry sizes and find the raspber p i lcd that are applicable to your required use. If you would like options that allow a smaller environmental footprint due to low power consumption, you can browse the Chip-on-Glass (COG) LCDs. COGs are designed without PCBs so have a slimmer profile.

Alibaba.com features a broad collection of smart and advanced raspberry pi lcd equipped with bright, capacitive screens for the most affordable prices. These raspberry pi lcd are made implying the latest technologies for a better, enhanced, and smart viewing experience. These products are of optimal quality and are sustainable so that they can last for a long time. Buy these raspberry pi lcd from the leading wholesalers and suppliers at discounted prices and fabulous deals. The smart and capacitive raspberry pi lcd offered on the site are applicable for all types of ads displaying, mobile screens, LCD monitors, and many more. You can use them both for commercial as well as residential purposes. These marvellous raspberry pi lcd are provided with bright and strong backlights available in distinct colors for a wonderful screen viewing experience. These raspberry pi lcd are.

Both the display driver board and the Pi need power- you can bridge them using the red and black jump wires supplied from the 5v and GND on the display driver board to the 5V and GND on the Pi ( find them here: http://pi.gadgetoid.com/pinout ) then plug the power into the display board.

If your touchscreen or display doesn’t work, triple check the FPC connectors - I’ve tested a lot of “not working” LCDs to find them working perfectly. In all cases the cables should be pushed in firmly and the clips secured fully- the larger FPC for the display ribbon takes quite a bit of force. I’ve posted a guide to the FPC connectors here: http://forums.pimoroni.com/t/raspberry-pi-official-7-touchscreen-assembly/1132

If you’ve got any reservations about connecting wires to your Pi’s GPIO, I recommend our split dial microB USB power cable: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/split-microb-usb-power-cable

Make sure you update your Pi first, you’ll need the latest software and the Raspbian OS in order to drive the screen. A full reinstall of Raspbian Jessie works best, you can find it here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

Follow the linked Installation Guide, and make sure you go into Menu -> Preferences -> Raspberry Pi Configuration and expand your filesystem when you first boot up your Pi.

There’s no better place to learn everything you might need to know about the screen than the Raspberry Pi blog post which you can find here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/the-eagerly-awaited-raspberry-pi-display/

This is unfortunately a side-effect of many developers assuming a minimum screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels. You can usually reveal hidden buttons and fields by;

Yes and no. As explained in the official Pi blog on the subject, only applications which know how to output over HDMI can be used. An example is given for OMXPlayer: https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/the-eagerly-awaited-raspberry-pi-display/

It is possible to use both display outputs at the same time, but it does require software to choose the right display. Omxplayer is one application that has been modified to enable secondary display output.

Please note, you may need to increase the amount of memory allocated to the GPU to 128MB if the videos are 1080P, adjust the gpu_mem value in config.txt for this. The Raspberry Pi headline figures are 1080P30 decode, so if you are using two 1080P clips it may not play correctly depending on the complexity of the videos.

Currently you can’t run a dual display X desktop, and we don’t know when or if this will be possible. If you know how to make it happen, you can chime in on this thread: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=120541

Note: An update has been pushed to Raspbian to flip the screen ( rotate it by 180 degrees ) for a better desktop viewing angle. This makes it upside-down in our stand and the official Pi stand, so you’ll need to change a setting to flip it back.

With the software updated it’s actually reasonably straight-forward to get the touchscreen working with a Model A or B Raspberry Pi. First you must make two additional connections between your Pi’s GPIO and the touchscreen: these are the SDA ( http://pinout.xyz/pinout/pin3_gpio2 ) and SCL ( http://pinout.xyz/pinout/pin5_gpio3 ) lines ( which you can connect using the supplied green and yellow wires ).

Note: This will give your i2c over to the Pi for running the LCD/Touchscreen and you wont be able to use any other i2c devices or add-on boards which require i2c.

If you absolutely need an extra 10 degrees of vertical viewing you can fit a Pibow Coupe to the back of the LCD screen and remove the legs. This lets it rest slightly further back while still remaining stable enough for everyday use. It also fits pretty neatly into a bag, too.

If you get a black screen, it likely means your DSI cable ( the one between the Pi and the driver board ) isn’t seated correctly or is… backwards ( I’m not even sure this is a real thing! ). We’ve had some success reversing the cable in this case- switching which end plugs into which part.

I’ve tried a number of USB cables from the USB port on the LCD driver board to the power input of my Pi and have invariably seen the little rainbow square indicating undervoltage in the top right hand corner of the LCD. (Note: This has seen been updated to a lightning bolt indicating the same)

I have put together a prototype split cable, and we’re looking into sourcing microUSB cable splitters to use in conjunction with the official Pi power supply as the most reliable solution.

Chris_c on the official Pi forums has discovered how to enable right-click with a simple configuration change. This allows you to press and hold on the touchscreen to trigger a right click.

As Clive demonstrates below, you can make a much more compact setup by flipping your Pi and mounting it with the ports facing towards the back of the LCD.

A standard GPIO ribbon cable will not fit between the two metal risers, so it’s impossible to route a Black HAT Hack3r or Cobbler out from the display in this position, but there might be cables out there that fit.

Gasp! Okay, I can see why you’d want to do this! I couldn’t put it better than the great step-by-step forum post here: https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=120793

You can find a technical drawing with dimensions of the display and mount hole locations here: https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/tree/master/hardware/display

Make sure you mount your screen by screwing, gently, into the mounting holes either side of the metal frame, or for the driver board. Don’t attempt to mount the screen by the glass front. The tape bonding the glass to the rest of the screen isn’t designed to carry the weight of the screen, your Pi and whatever else might be connected.

The Compute Module IO board (for CM and CM3) includes a connector for the screen, see: https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/computemodule/cmio-display.md

Adding a small LCD touchscreen to Raspberry Pi seems like a terrific idea (see the "Choosing a Touchscreen" box) – until you realize that the default desktop environment is not optimized for tiny displays. The tendency of programmers to design for an old-style computer desktop means launching applications and performing actions on a tiny touchscreen is often fiddly at best. In most cases, though, you might just be using the touchscreen for a few specific tasks, and building your own graphical interface might seem like too much trouble.

Several LCD touchscreens for Raspberry Pi are available on the market. The PiTFT 2.8-inch 320x240 panel from Adafruit [3] is available through several web stores. You can also buy a stylish PiTFT Pibow case [4] for it. You"ll find a wealth of documentation on installing and using PiTFT on Adafruit"s website [5]. RPI-Display from Watterott [6] is another good option – especially if you are based in Europe. Watterott also sells an enclosure for the Raspberry Pi and RPI-Display combo [7], and all the required software (including an SD card image) is available in the RPi-Display GitHub repository [8]. It"s also possible to find a decent touchscreen for Raspberry Pi on eBay, but make sure it comes with the required software.

Enter PiMenu [1] – a simple solution written in Python and TkInter that lets you build tile-based graphical interfaces with consummate ease. PiMenu was originally designed by Andreas Gohr of DokuWiki fame for his paper backup project [2]. Thanks to its simplicity and versatility, however, PiMenu can be easily adapted for any other project requiring a simple graphical interface.

command to make PiMenu work on Raspberry Pi. Then, grab the latest release of PiMenu as a ZIP archive from the project"s GitHub repository, or clone the repository using

PiMenu consists of three key parts: the pimenu.py Python script that draws the GUI, the pimenu.yaml configuration file that defines menu items, and the pimenu.sh Bash shell script that performs actions based on arguments received from pimenu.py.

For each menu item specified in the pimenu.yaml configuration file, PiMenu draws a tile, and the main script automatically resizes tiles to fit them in the window. The tiled interface is inspired by the Windows 8 design, which actually works pretty well on Raspberry Pi. In the pimenu.yaml file, you can specify a hierarchy of menu items, so you can create a rather elaborate menu structure.

I don"t travel as much as I would like to, but when I do, I take a lot of photos. And I always wanted to build a Raspberry Pi-based backup device to keep my precious snapshots safe while I"m traveling. PiMenu was the missing piece required to bring this idea to fruition. Ideally, the Raspberry Pi-based backup box should perform several tasks, such as transferring photos directly from a camera or a card reader and backing up the transferred photos to a USB storage device.

The first order of business is to edit the pimenu.yaml file to include the required menu items (Listing 1). Each menu item in the configuration file has four properties: mandatory name and label as well as optional color and icon. The icon refers to the name of the appropriate icon in the GIF format stored in the ico directory (e.g., icon: "menu" points to the ico/menu.gif graphics file).

The additional items property can be used to specify sub-items. In this case, the Menu item contains three sub-items: Camera, USB, and Backup. Note that the menu items and sub-items must be indented properly using spaces (not tabs) and separated with the "-" separator.

The pimenu.py Python script not only draws the interface using the configuration from the pimenu.yaml file, but it also reads the names of the menu tiles when pressed and executes the pimenu.sh Bash shell script. This is where all the action happens. You can configure the script to perform actions based on the name of the pressed tile. One way is to configure the script to read the name of the pressed tile and then use a case conditional statement to perform the desired actions.

To obtain the name of the pressed tile, you can use the echo "$*" command. However, this command returns the names of all menu items if the pressed tile resides somewhere down the menu hierarchy. For example, if you press the Backup tile, the returned result will be Menu Backup. Because pimenu.sh needs only the name of the pressed tile, you can use the awk tool to extract it from the result returned by the echo "$*" command and assign the obtained value to the key variable:

This variable can then be used in the case statement as shown in Listing 2. I"ll take a closer look at what each part of the case statement actually does.

to obtain the mountpoint of the USB device. It does so by using the find tool, which looks for non-empty folders in the media directory. The sed tool in turn applies proper escaping if the obtained path contains white spaces (e.g., /media/NIKON D90/DCIM/100NCD90/ becomes /media/NIKON\ D90/DCIM/100NCD90/). This command assumes that there is only one USB storage device or card reader connected to Raspberry Pi at the time.

To back up the transferred photos to an external storage device connected to the USB port of Raspberry Pi, the script features two commands: The first one obtains the mountpoint of the USB device, and the second command uses the rsync tool to copy the photos.

Tapping on the tile with no sub-tiles returns an empty result, so the final part of the case statement closes PiMenu by killing all running pimenu processes if the $key value is empty – that is, the "") condition.

With PiMenu configured and ready to go, you have only two things left to do: Install the required packages and provide a way to launch PiMenu without using the keyboard. To install the packages, run the following commands:

With minimal tweaking, you can improve the described project and put it to other uses. For example, you can easily extend PiMenu"s configuration to include cloud backup (e.g., using rsync via SSH), preview photos downloaded from the camera or a card reader, and much more. You can easily modify the project to use Raspberry Pi as a backup device not only for photos but also for files and documents in general.

You can also adapt PiMenu to entirely different uses altogether. For example, you can turn your Raspberry Pi into an Internet radio device that lets you choose stations via the touch-screen menu, or you can build a simple launcher that opens specific applications. In other words, if you have a Raspberry Pi with an LCD touchscreen, PiMenu can prove to be an indispensable ingredient for making the combo useful.