KCON - Pi Chef 7 inch Touchscreen Time

1. Intro Blog
2. Unboxing
3. Setup
4. Gourmet Install
5. Load up some Recipes!
6. Enclosure Planning.
7. 7inch Touchscreen Time   <<<---
8. AIY Build / Google Voice
9. AIY API & Certs
10. Succes with Google AIY!

Time for some TouchScreen implementation!

I have on hand a Raspberry Pi Element 14 7inch Touchscreen from a previous project and now is the time to bring it into this project.

Ye Olde Raspberry Pi 7" Touchscreen Display box.  It does a fine job of storing the Screen when it is not in use.

Here we have the new Screen laying face down below the KCON.  When it is installed it will be flipped on top kind of like two pieces of bread that you would be adding jelly and peanut butter to.

Here we have combined the two boards and you can see where the video will be connected.

I am sure everyone knows that the black plastic lifts up for the insertion of the cable, but since I had it set up for pictures I thought I would be sure all the new RPI users would see this.

Here we have the cable seated and locked in place.

Here is the LCD screen flipped back over on it's front to allow you to see where the power is connected.  It is very clearly marked with GND and 5V.

Here is a correct side up picture so you can more easily see where everything is plugged into.

Here we have the KCON secured to the underside of the 7" screen, ready for power connections.

Referring to the Element 14 Documentation for the Raspberry Pi Element 14 7inch Touchscreen pins 2 & 6 are good pins to use for power off of the Raspberry Pi.  Pins 2 & 4 both provide 5v but we only need one, so Pin 2 it is, and Pin 6 provides us our ground connection.

Now let's flip it over and see what happens when we connect it to power and a keyboard/mouse setup.

Wow, the system recognized the screen and powered up pretty fast.  Faster then my camera would allow for me to get some pictures in fact!

I still have the screen protector on since I usually leave it on while doing test projects.  I am sure when this goes into actual use it will be removed.  My wife hates those things!

So a quick check shows us our Gourmet application is easily found!

And here is our Gourmet Recipe Manager!  Not too bad!

Knowing my wife is going to want the quickest path to the Recipe Manager I went back to the icon and right clicked on it to allow a shortcut to be placed on the Desktop.  Since I am adding easy access for her, I might as well put a web browser there for her as well.

Okay, following the Element 14 documentation it suggest adding Matchbox Keyboard for a touchscreen keyboard. 

Right now I am using a plugged in keyboard and mouse but the end install idea is for the touchscreen and hopefully voice control.

So let's walk through the install of the Matchbox Keyboard application:

sudo apt-get install matchbox-keyboard

And we are off to the install races!

Per the instructions the next step is to exit the terminal and reboot.  So a quick right click on Shutdown allows us to choose the Restart option.

Now that it has rebooted we should be able to access the keyboard option under accessories...

But it is not there!

So a quick search shows others having the same issues and a variety of potential fixes ranging from install another application to some tweaking of install locations.

I liked the options provided by the Raspberry Pi Forum for tweaking the install so I will give that a try here.

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/inputmethods/matchbox-keyboard.desktop /usr/share/applications/

This copies our .desktop file.

lxpanelctl restart

This of course restarts the lxpanel.

Sure enough following their directions when I now look under accessories I see TWO Keyboard options.  Much better then none, but not quite the one.

sudo rm /usr/share/applications/matchbox-keyboard.desktop

Let's now remove that copy we had added earlier.

lxpanelctl restart

And another lxpanel restart.

A quick check shows us now with just one Virtual Keyboard!  Success!

Here we have it up on the screen,  It is a tad large for the screen, taking roughly 1/2 of the screen.  Sad since the keys are kind of tiny for my clunky fingertips.

Let's use it with our Gourmet Recipe Manager and look up our Raspberry Pi recipe.

Very nice!  Now we have our recipe up and ready to be used!