# Kiosk Mode

The Kiosk mode is a special mode where iCab blocks the access to the rest of the system, switches off the menu bar and where only one window is open which covers the whole screen. This mode is meant for a so called "Kiosk Environment" which is usually a computer terminal that is located on a public place (like an information terminal in a station, in a hotel lobby, on exhibitions, museums etc) and offers certain information to the user. The user should be able to access only the information that is provided but he should be unable to gain access to the system or be able to access other information from the internet. The Kiosk mode in iCab can offer all this, but it can be also configured to be much less strict if it is only used in a private environment where many of the security features are not needed.

## Entering and Leaving the Kiosk Mode

The Kiosk Mode can be enabled using the menu item Tools > Kiosk Mode. iCab will then open a dialog box with some important information like the keyboard shortcut which has to be used to get out of the kiosk mode (this shortcut is Cmd-Shift-K). Because the Kiosk Mode switches off the menu bar, you can't use the menu to leave the Kiosk mode, so make sure you don't forget the keyboard shortcut for leaving the Kiosk. The Kiosk mode can be also protected with a password. This is very important for Kiosk terminals in a public location where nobody should be able to leave the kiosk mode, even the user accidently enters the Cmd-Shift-K shortcut. To protect you against typos you have to enter the password twice and only if both passwords are identical, you can enter the kiosk mode. When leaving the Kiosk mode, you have to enter the same password again. So make sure you never forget your password.

When leaving the Kiosk mode and after entering the password you have the choice to go back to normal mode again (click the OK button in the "Leave Kiosk" dialog box) or you can immediately quit iCab (click the "Quit" button in the "leave Kiosk" dialog box). When you quit iCab here, iCab will quit but remains in Kiosk mode internally. So the next time iCab is launched it will go directly into Kiosk mode. No need to manually enter the Kiosk mode again. In case you want to make sure that iCab will stay in Kiosk mode internally even if someone accidently switches to normal mode, you can do the following: After quitting iCab from within the "Leave Kiosk" dialog box, locate the file `~/Library/Preferences/de.icab.iCab.plist` in the Finder and write-protect this file in the Finder "File Info" window. Then iCab can no longer change this file and all the preferences can't be modified anymore, including the status of the Kiosk mode.

In a private environment where you don't need such a protection, you can leave the password field blank when entering the Kiosk mode. In this case when leaving the Kiosk mode you won't be asked for a password at all.

## Kiosk Mode settings

In the Preferences dialog you'll find a Preferences panel where you can configure the Kiosk mode in detail.

You can configure the kiosk mode to work offline only. In this case it is impossible to go online to access the internet. Only local files can be loaded.

In case the Kiosk Terminal uses a touch screen it is possible to hide the mouse cursor completely. The mouse cursor is not needed in this case because the user is using his own finder to "point and click". Also usefuly is the virtual keyboard which can be enabled in the Kiosk mode. So even without a keyboard attached, the user is able to enter text in form field or in the URL field. The virtual keyboard can be revealed on the screen (if it is currently closed) using the contextual menu or by triple-clicking in the background of the browser window. So the user is able to open or close the virtual keyboard at any time.

It is possible to deactivate the keyboard shortcut to enable the Kiosk mode. This can be useful if you tend to accidently type in this keyboard shortcut but do not want to enter the Kiosk mode at all.

There's a keyboard shortcut Cmd-Alt-ESC which can be used to force-quit each running application. iCab is able to disable this shortcut in kiosk mode. This is very important for a kiosk environment that is used in a public location to protect the system. Otherwise people would be able to force-quit iCab to get access to the system. In case the kiosk system doesn't have a keyboard attached so that this shortcut can't be entered, it is not necessary to disable the "force-quit" shortcut. Also in a private environment this is probably not necessary. Disabling the force-quit-shortcut can have also negative side-effects for example when iCab hangs for some reason. Then you can't just force-quit iCab anymore and you have to shut down the power of the Mac and start the whole system again.

It is possible to switch on or off the toolbars (Navigation toolbar, Favorites Toolbar, status bar etc.) in the Kiosk mode independently of the general mode of iCab. So it's possible to disable the favorites toolbar in Kiosk mode while this toolbar is enabled in normal mode, for example.

Also the Kiosk mode can have its own homepage which will be automatically loaded when entering the kiosk mode and when a user of the kiosk system ends his "session". The Kiosk homepage is a very easy way to provide a well defined starting point for all users of the Kiosk system. It is possible to add a "End Session" button in the browser toolbar. This button allows the user to manually end his session so that iCab will go back to the kiosk homepage. It's also possible to define an "idle" timeout. This means that iCab will automatically go back to the Kiosk home page when the computer was idle for a certain time (there's no user input for a certain time), assuming that no user is using the Kiosk at the moment. This helps if the user "forgets" to click the "End Session" button. It's even possible to define a time which triggers after a certain time, regardless if the computer is currently in use. This is only useful if you want to limit the time each user is allowed to use the Kiosk system. All these features can be combined and be active at the same time. For security and privacy reasons iCab can be also configured to delete all cookies, the history and other private data that was collected within a session, whenever iCab goes back to the Kiosk homepage via "End Session Button" or one of the timers. Enabling this option makes sure that one user can't access the sites or data from the previous users.

iCab also offers some filters for the Kiosk mode. It is possible to provide a list of URLs which are allowed in Kiosk mode. When accessing sites that are not in this list, the user will only get an error message. When adding an URL into the "allowed web pages" list, you can use the wildcard characters "*" (stands for any number of characters) and "?" (stands for one character) to make a URL valid for a whole web site. Without using the wildcard characters a URL will only match a single web page. For example the URL "http://www.icab.de/" in the list of allowed web pages will only allow access to the start page of the iCab web site. No other subpage will be allowed because these subpage have a different URL. But when using the URL "http://www.icab.de/*" in the list of allowed web pages, then access to the whole iCab web site is allowed. The "*" at the end of the URL will match all URLs which start with "http://www.icab.de/", so you can also access "http://www.icab.de/info.html" etc. Using the wildcards makes it easy to restrict the access to certain web sites or even to certain folders of a site without the need to define a large number of individual URLs.

It is also possible to filter the user input in form fields. You can provide certain forbidden keywords. Whenever the user enters such keyword in form fields iCab will automatically filter these out.