flimkit-web-ui

A browser front end for FLIMKit. Start FLIMKit, open http://127.0.0.1:8766, and every desktop mode is there in a web page: Single FOV, Tile Stitch, Phasor, Batch and the Machine IRF builder, plus the project browser, synthetic data generator, preferences and plugin manager.

It is an add-on, not a second copy of the app. The page drives the desktop window's own form variables and presses its own buttons, so a fit started from the browser runs through exactly the same code path as one started from the desktop, and the two stay in sync.

Install

pip install flimkit-web-ui

Install it into the same Python environment FLIMKit runs from. FLIMKit finds it through the flimkit.plugins entry point, so there is nothing else to wire up. On the next start the server comes up automatically and Tools > Open Web UI opens it in your browser.

Verify the install with:

python -c "import flimkit_web_ui; print('ok')"

Tested with FLIMKit 0.13.4.

What is in the page

Files are chosen with a file browser in the page, which lists folders on the machine FLIMKit is running on. Anything the desktop would offer as a save dialog is either written to the path you give or downloaded by the browser.

How it behaves

• One app, shared state. There is one FLIMKit window behind the page. Several tabs or people can open it, but they all control the same form and the same results, and the last edit wins. Only one fit runs at a time.
• Dialogs move to the page while you use it. While a web page is open and has been used in the last 30 minutes, FLIMKit's desktop pop-ups (errors, warnings, "missing input", channel and frequency prompts) appear as notices in the page instead of blocking the desktop. Close the tab and the desktop behaves normally again.
• Progress windows still appear on the desktop. The page mirrors their progress and can cancel them.

Security

By default the server listens on 127.0.0.1 only and has no password. Anyone who can reach it can browse your files and run FLIMKit, so set a password before exposing it to any network.

The address is read from the plugin:web_ui section of ~/.flimkit/config.json:

{
  "plugin:web_ui": {
    "host": "127.0.0.1",
    "port": 8766
  }
}

Port 8765 belongs to the FLIMKit bridge, so the web UI defaults to 8766. If that is taken it moves to a free port and prints it in FLIMKit's log, and Tools > Open Web UI opens wherever it ended up. A port set here or in FLIMKIT_WEB_PORT is used as given, and a clash there is an error rather than a quiet move.

Running without a desktop (Docker, servers)

FLIMKit still needs an X display to start its Tk window, so run it under a virtual display such as Xvfb, and configure the web UI with environment variables. These override the config file.

GET /healthz answers ok without a password once the server is up, for container health checks.

The FLIMKit Docker images are set up this way.

Working on it

pip install --no-deps 'flimkit @ git+https://github.com/FLIMKit/FLIMKit'
pip install -e '.[test]'
pytest -q

The tests are headless: they check the plugin registers, the dialog and threading bridge, the API helpers and the HTTP server against a stand-in app, so they need no display and no FLIMKit scientific stack.

Releasing

Push a tag like v0.1.0. The publish workflow builds the package and uploads it to PyPI through trusted publishing, and the release workflow attaches the wheel and sdist to a GitHub release.

Licence

MIT, same as FLIMKit.