Good Day,

I've been wrestling with the Browser widget on Linux long enough now that I've 
largely given up on using it for anything destined for a production 
environment. However, that has not reduced my need for a browser which I can 
control in my specific use-case: open a streaming video url, make it full 
screen, autoplay, wait for navigational input from the user (arrow keys, DEL 
key, etc), and close when requested.

I did attempt to build a controllable browser using Neutralinojs, which showed 
potential. With it's configuration options, having a borderless, floating 
browser window appear at exact coordinates is very do-able. Unfortunately for 
me, the cross-origin nature of using an iframe is preventing JavaScript from 
forcing playback without a physical "click" from the user. Setting the URL of 
the Neutralinojs "browser" directly (not using iframe) resolves the 
cross-origin restriction, but it still required click for playback. Plus, 
setting the URL directly wipes out any JavaScript written, so inter-process 
communications disappears immediately. So that solution isn't viable.

I'm thinking of attempting the same concept using Electron, but I'm betting 
100% the experience will be the same. Many in the past have abused the Autoplay 
feature, so its largely locked down in commercial browsers at this point. I'm 
pretty sure I'd have to compile a custom browser from source, which I have 
never done before. Nor am I interested in going down that rabbit hole (yet).

So I wanted to reach out to see if anyone has stumbled upon a solution for 
showing web pages on Linux in such a way that you can still maintain control 
over the browser through LiveCode?

With regards to my use-case, I've (temporarily) opted to launch Firefox using 
"open process" (non blocking) in Kiosk mode. This is nearly producing what I 
need, except regaining control involves terminating Firefox when my user 
presses a "Universal Home" button on their remote control. Not ideal, but it 
works.

What's frustrating is that there's a Browser Widget sitting in my toolbar which 
seems to work well on Windows and Mac. However, even if the widget was 
compatible (or I found a modern distro where it works), it still wouldn't solve 
my problem: LC's browser implementation has some of it's multimedia framework 
support turned off, so HLS is out the window. This would need to be added in by 
LiveCode Ltd., most likely.

Am I stuck?

I appreciate the help and look forward to feedback.

Thank you,
Derek Bump

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