datapanels 0.0.1.dev2

An application for displaying a rotating set of information panels

Overview

Datapanels is an application for displaying a rotating set of independent panels, each of which displays some useful or entertaining information or something visually interesting.

Usage

After installation, the application can be run using

python -m datapanels.app [--builder_path path_to_builder_file] [--transition-sec secs]

The --builder_path option lets you specify a configuration file that will determine what panels get displayed. The --transition-sec parameter lets you specify the number of seconds between transitions. If no parameters are provided, a simple default set of panels will be created.

Configuring Datapanels

Datapanels can be configured via a configuration file that specifies what panels should be displayed. This is actually a Kivy ([https://kivy.org/]) configuration file.

The configuration file should take the form:

<DataBuilder>:
    PanelType1:
        panel type one parameters
    PanelType2
        panel type two parameters
    PanelType2
        parameters for another instance of PanelType2

The following example show a sample configuration. Notice how three StockPanel types are created, one for each stock ticker of interest.

<DataBuilder>:
    QuotationDisplay:
        update_sec: 5
        quotations: "Quote 1", "Quote 2", "Quote 3"
    StockPanel:
        ticker: 'MSFT'
    StockPanel:
        ticker: 'PSEC'
    StockPanel:
        ticker: 'DOCN'

Panel Types

Each panel displayed in Datapanels can be configured. The following sections describe each panel type and its key parameters.

QuotationDisplay

The quotation display is a simple panel that displays quotations. These quotations change periodically.

The parameters include:

• update_sec - how often to choose a new quotation
• quotations - either a list of strings, each of which is a quotation, or the path to a text file with one line per quotation

StockPanel

The StockPanel display information about a single stock. This information is downloaded using the yfinance library.

The parameters include:

• ticker - The symbol for the stock of interest
• update_rate_sec - How many seconds to wait before updating the data.
• proxyserver - A proxy server to use (if you are behind a firewall)
• delayrange - An integer with the maximum time to add to update_rate_sec before updating. This helps to spread out the calls of the different panels so that they are not all calling out at once.