mqttk 1.1.0

A lightweight MQTT client GUI written in pure python

• Introduction
• Software dependencies
• Installation
  • macOS - app
  • On macOS from source
    • macOS Dependencies
    • macOS - acquiring and installing the package from source
    • macOS - installing via pip
    • macOS - running MQTTk
  • Windows - as an executable
  • Windows - from source
    • Windows - dependencies
    • Windows - acquiring and installing the package from source
    • Windows - installing it via pip
    • Windows - running MQTTk
  • On Linux from source
    • Linux - dependencies
    • Linux - acquiring and installing the package from source
    • Linux - installing it via pip
    • Linux - Running MQTTk
• Using the app
  • Features
  • Planned features
    • V1.1
    • V1.2
    • V1.3
• Building the app from source
  • pypi package
  • macOS appimage
    • Dependencies
    • Building the macOS app
  • Windows executable
• How to contribute
  • Reporting bugs
  • macOS universal2 appimage
  • Linux binary package or app

Introduction

MQTTk is a very lightweight MQTT GUI client that looks retarded, but it does the job fast in a native fashion, without bloated and sluggish browser, java and javascript based rubbish that may look good, but are a pain to use especially in a professional environment.

It intends to replicate most features and functionality of MQTT.fx which is no longer free and the free version is no longer maintained. Since upgrading my computer, it was crashing every minute, practically becoming useless. I always found it more useful than other MQTT GUI clients, which mostly update the values of topics as they come in, in my work, being able to track message exchange over time is as important as the content of the messages themselves.

Since I couldn't find a similar tool out there, I decided to make my own and share it with whoever is interested. The project is written in Tk/ttk. I don't have time to learn some fancy-pancy GUI environment, it was quick and easy to knock out, and it should run on anything including the kitchen sink without too much pain.

Software dependencies

The project is written in pure python, powered by the below projects:

• python3.7+
• Tkinter/ttk
• Eclipse paho-mqtt python client
• xmltodict

That't it, nothing fancy. Give the above projects a big thumbs up!

Installation

macOS - app

:warning: The built appimage is experimental! Use it at your own risk, it may cause kernel panics and app crashes.

:warning: The app image is only for M1 (ARM64, Apple Silicon) macs! With my current knowledge I can't produce a working intel or universal2 app image.

Download the latest release from the GitHub releases page and install it like any other apps.

The system may complain about not being able to verify the developer. You can find more information about me here, so you can verify the developer yourself instead. To run the app, follow the instructions provided by apple here.

On macOS from source

macOS Dependencies

You must have Python 3.7+ and pip installed. On some versions of macOS or the python package, Tk/ttk is not included, in which case the python-tk package is also needed.

The easiest way to install these, is to use homebrew. The commands below may be different on your system. Open the terminal and issue these commands:

$ brew install python python-tk

:warning: When installing/running the app, use the system interpreter, or the interpreter available via homebrew. During my testing, Conda or other interpreters occasionally caused my system to crash entirely (kernel panic) and when using mission control to switch between apps, MQTTk crashed regularly. The cause is outside the code of this software. This crash happens under certain circumstances when switching to the app via mission control or the dock, there's nothing I can do about it, unfortunately. Therefore, use other interpreters at your own risk!

macOS - acquiring and installing the package from source

Download the latest release from the GitHub repository and install it using pip.

$ pip3 install mqttk-x.y.tar.gz

macOS - installing via pip

Issue the following command:

$ pip3 install mqttk

macOS - running MQTTk

To run the software, just issue the mqttk command from the terminal.

$ mqttk

If the app fails to start, or crashes randomly, try re-launching it using the

$ mqttk-console

command. This will leave a console window, which might provide additional debug information when something goes tits up.

Windows - as an executable

Download the latest release from the GitHub repository and install/run like any other apps.

Windows - from source

Windows - dependencies

Download python3 from the official website and install it like any other apps.

Windows - acquiring and installing the package from source

Download the latest release from the GitHub repository and then install it using pip and the command line:

> pip3 install mqttk-x.y.tar.gz

Windows - installing it via pip

Issue the following command in the command line:

> pip3 install mqttk

Windows - running MQTTk

In the command line issue the command:

> mqttk

If the app fails to start, or crashes randomly, try re-launching it using the

$ mqttk-console

command. This will leave a console window, which might provide additional debug information when something goes tits up.

On Linux from source

Linux - dependencies

You need to install python3, python3-pip and in some cases the python3-tk packages. The process will be different depending on your distribution, refer to your distributions package manager or community. As an example, on ubuntu you'd need to install the below packages using apt. On other distros, python3 might be default, in which case the "3" suffix won't be needed on the packages.

$ sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-tk

Linux - acquiring and installing the package from source

Download the latest release from the GitHub repository and install it using pip.

$ pip3 install mqttk-x.y.tar.gz

Linux - installing it via pip

Just issue the command

$ pip3 install mqttk

Linux - Running MQTTk

From the command line issue the command

$ mqttk

If the app fails to start, or crashes randomly, try re-launching it using the

$ mqttk-console

command. This will leave a console window, which might provide additional debug information when something goes tits up.

Using the app

Features

MQTTk allows configuration of multiple connection profiles. Once configured, the brokers can be connected to, and you can subscribe to topics. Incoming messages are shown in time, their colour can be changed and selected message's payloads displayed. There are currently 3 decoders, plain text, json pretty formatter and hex decoder to analyse message data.

You can also publish messages, save message templates and one-click publish them. You can send messages with any QoS and retained messages as well.

So far, I added the most useful message decoding features: JSON pretty formatter and hex decoders. There is also an option to attempt to decompress the payload before feeding it into the decoder.

If you used MQTT.fx in the past, MQTTk will try to find and import your config. The connection profiles, subscribe and publish history will be imported, as well as the saved message templates.

There is a built-in log feature to show any exceptions/debug information, let me know if you see something unusual there.

Connection profiles, subscription and publish history and saved message templates can be exported and imported.

Messages can be dumped into .CSV and .JSON formats. Message payload is exported as unicode text if possible, otherwise it is encoded in base64.

Subscribe interface

Publish interface

Configuration interface

Export subscribe/publish history interface

Planned features

V1.2

• tree-style topic inspector where all incoming messages are organised in a tree and the latest payload is shown

V1.3

• Broker stats tab
• MQTT 5.0 features

Building the app from source

pypi package

issue the following command in the project root to build the sdist package.

$ python3 setup.py sdist

The built package will appear in the dist/ directory.

macOS appimage

:warning: This is highly experimental and needs refiniement!

:warning: When building the app, use the system interpreter, or the interpreter available via homebrew.

Conda or other interpreters can cause your system to crash entirely (kernel panic) which issue is outside of the code of this software. This crash happens under certain circumstances when switching to the app via mission control or the dock. Use other interpreters at your own risk!

Dependencies

You need to have xcode installed. Use the app store to do that if you don't have it yet. You will also need the xcode command line tools to be installed. You can do that from the terminal:

$ xcode-select —install

Just like when running the app, you need python3, pip and python3-tk. Install these as explained above.

In addition, you need the pyinstaller package. Install it using pip:

$ pip install pyinstaller

Building the macOS app

I was not able to build a universal app image for MACs that ran native on both Intel and M1 architectures, so I only built the ARM64 package.

Navigate to the project root and issue

$  pyinstaller mqttk.spec

Windows executable

Just like when running the app, you need python3, pip and python3-tk. Install these as explained above. In addition, you need the pyinstaller package, use the command line:

> pip3 install pyinstaller

Navigate to the project root and issue the following command:

> pyinstaller mqttk.spec

How to contribute

Reporting bugs

Use the GitHub issue reporting page of the project to help me squish bugs.

macOS universal2 appimage

My time and knowledge is limited to figure how to properly build a universal2 app image (intel + ARM). I managed to build an M1 only version, with which I'm not entirely happy, it takes a long time to start up for some reason. Furthermore, I had issues with the app when not running on the system interpreter on my M1 mac, causing regular crashes and kernel panics when switching to and from MQTTk. I would appreciate help with building the app and testing the resulting image out on other machines.

Linux binary package or app

There are more ways to distribute apps on various linux distros than stars on the sky. I'd appreciate recommendations on what format to use and maybe a helping hand figuring it out and getting things set up.