Web interface¶
The web interface is the primary means of managing and monitoring a Perfect Streamer node. This is the context-sensitive help section: its structure mirrors the structure of the web interface, and every screen and every significant dialog box has its own section, which the help button opens.
This section describes the purpose of each screen and its relation to the rest of the documentation. The meaning of individual fields and the rules for filling them in are given directly in the interface (brief hints next to the fields), while the concepts behind the settings are covered in the referenced topical sections of the manual.
Access and roles¶
The web interface is opened in a browser at the node address and the web server port: by default http://<address>:8808 (or https://<address>:43981 when TLS is enabled). Two interfaces are available: the new one (primary) and the classic one, at the path /classic. The initial sign-in, the service ports and changing the default password are described in Initial settings.
Sign-in is performed with a login and a password (Digest authentication). Permissions are determined by the account role:
- Admin
Full access: configuration of streams and services, administration, viewing.
- Restricted admin
Viewing and pausing — of a stream, of an individual input or output of it and of a DVB adapter.
- Viewer
Status viewing only: this role has no pause button at all.
The role also determines the set of screens. Only the administrator has access to “Users / Logins” and “EPG Settings”, to the whole “Administration” group and, within “Monitoring”, to “Logs” and “Alerts”; the remaining screens open in all three roles. The restriction applies not only in the menu: a direct link to a closed screen produces the “No access” page. Within the commonly available screens the actions that change the configuration are not disabled but simply not shown — a role without the rights does not see them.
The node serves the alert feed to the administrator only. Therefore in the two other roles all the alarm indicators in the interface are empty: the alert marks on the stream rows, the dots on the graphs and the cards, the state colour driven by an alert. Monitoring itself keeps working — only the alert channel is closed (Alerts).
Accounts and roles are managed on the Web server & accounts screen.
Sign in¶
The sign-in form is displayed before the application loads and prompts for a login and a password. After a successful sign-in, the last viewed screen is opened. Changing the default password is mandatory at the first sign-in (see Initial settings).
Interface layout¶
On the left is the navigation menu grouped by section; at the top is the bar with the common elements. The menu operates in two scopes, switched in the top bar:
Node — management and monitoring of the current node. Three menu groups:
Monitor — status of streams, clients, hardware and services;
Configure — users and EPG;
Administration — server services, storages, license, maintenance.
Meshwork — consolidated screens of the node network: the map, the links and the shared resource catalogue (see Meshwork and the Meshwork section).
The composition of the menu depends on the role and on what is present on the node. An item the role has no rights for is not shown. “DVB adapters” and “Hardware” appear according to the devices detected, not the ones configured. The remaining conditional items depend not on the hardware but on the objects themselves: “DVR” requires at least one storage, “Transcoders” at least one transcoder instance, “Test streams” a running test input.
Lists are handled the same way throughout the interface. In the configuration lists — the inputs and outputs of a stream, the logins, the billing servers, the sources, the channel sets and the EPG accounts, the DVR storages, the web server accounts — a click anywhere in the row opens its editor, the same as the “Edit” button at the end of the row; a click on a nested element (pause, deletion, the library button) performs only that element’s action. In the monitoring lists a click on a row expands the details, and the expanded row is marked by a highlight and a stripe at the left edge. Keyboard operation is described in Keyboard operation.
Common bar¶
Besides the scope switch, the top bar provides: the uptime indicator, the alerts bell (for the administrator role only; leads to the Alerts screen), the list of keyboard shortcuts, the help button, the language selector, the switch for opening adjacent nodes, the theme switch and log out. The node-opening switch shows its current value — “New tab” or “Current tab” (the “Open nodes in” tooltip) — and applies everywhere the interface leads to the admin UI of another node.
Keyboard operation¶
The interface can be used without a mouse. The first press of Tab on any screen brings up the “Skip to content” button: it moves the focus into the screen area, bypassing the top bar and the menu. The element under focus is always outlined by a frame; when working with the mouse the frame does not appear.
Four shortcuts work on any screen:
Keys |
Action |
|---|---|
|
Open the “Keyboard shortcuts” window. |
|
Move the cursor to the screen’s search field. The field is present on the “Streams”, “Clients”, “EPG Database”, “Logs” and “Pipeline” screens; on the others the key is left to the browser and its own find-on-page works. |
|
Move to the navigation menu, to the current item. |
|
Move to the screen content. |
While the cursor is in an input field and while any dialog window is open, these shortcuts do not act: the characters are typed, and the keyboard belongs to the window. Alt+N and Alt+M are detected by the physical key position, so they also work on layouts where Alt+N produces a diacritic.
A data list is a single Tab stop: it is entered once, and from there the arrows are used. The ↑ and ↓ keys move between rows, Home and End — to the first and the last one, Enter or the space bar open or expand a row, → and ← expand and collapse it. Tab inside the list goes round the buttons of the current row and then leaves the list altogether; the cursor position is remembered, including after a mouse click. Simply moving the cursor opens nothing: a row becomes the one selected for the header actions by Enter.
Where the row order is set by dragging, the same move is done with the Alt+↑ and Alt+↓ shortcuts — in the “Streams” list, in the “Billing servers” list (Users / Logins) and in the “Programs” window (Programs). The new order is saved immediately; on a refusal the row returns to its place. Unlike dragging, the keyboard move is available on a narrow screen as well.
On a graph canvas (Pipeline, Topology, Node peers) the arrows do not step through rows but pan the image; + and − change the zoom, 0 fits the whole graph.
In any dialog window Esc closes the window, Tab walks its elements in a loop and does not lead outside the window, and after closing the focus returns to the element from which the window was opened.
The “Keyboard shortcuts” window is opened by the ? key and by the button in the common bar. On a narrow screen there is no button, but the shortcuts themselves work: with a keyboard attached the window is called up by the key. It lists the shortcuts in four groups — “Everywhere”, “In a list”, “On a movable row” and “In a dialog” — and reminds that on macOS the ⌥ Option key is used instead of Alt. The key names in the window are not translated.
How context-sensitive help works¶
Help is invoked from the interface and opens the section that corresponds to the current context:
for a screen, help is opened with the common help button and leads to the section for that screen;
for a dialog box, help is invoked with the “?” button in the box itself and leads to the section for that box.
Every screen and every significant dialog box has its own help section, so navigating from the interface always leads to the description of exactly what is open on the screen.
