Web UI for Conway Game of Life

This package is a Web interface for package conway-life.

Installation

Use PyPi package life-web-ui

python3 -m pip install --upgrade life-web-ui

Usage

Package installs an executable script life-start (via common entry_points configuration option, so depending on your local settings it may or may not be in your $PATH)

Running this command will start a local server and open it in the default browser. To exit, press Ctrl-C to quit the server and close the browser tab.

life-start [-h] [--log {debug,info,warning,error,critical}] [-p PORT]
           [--cell PIXELS] [--space PIXELS] [--padding PIXELS] [-d]

Run Web UI for Game of Life

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --log {debug,info,warning,error,critical}, --log_level {debug,info,warning,error,critical}
                        Logging level (default = debug)
  -p PORT, --port PORT  Port (default = 13882)
  --cell PIXELS, --size PIXELS
                        Size of cell in pixels (default = 20)
  --space PIXELS        Spacing between cells in pixels
  --padding PIXELS      Canvas padding in pixels

Implementation notes

life-start will run a local Flask server. All computations are done in the server (not in the browser), synchronously on the Step command and asynchronously on Walk or Run. Asynchronous execution is done with a background Python thread with results polled by the browser. (Walk is different from Run in the background thread being suspended between polls).

There is also a short-lived background thread on startup to open Web browser (after a short delay to make sure server has had time to start). This won't happen if -d/--dev option is used (see below).

Development

For testing purposes, start the server with this command:

FLASK_ENV=development <VENV_ROOT>/bin/python3 <GIT_ROOT>/py-web/src/life_web_ui/__init__.py -d --log debug

Virtual environment installed under VENV_ROOT must have all dependencies listed in setup.cfg configuration file for the package (install_requires).