pynetworktables2js 2021.0.1

pynetworktables2js

A cross platform library that forwards NetworkTables key/values over a WebSocket, so that you can easily write a Driver Station Dashboard for your robot in HTML5 + JavaScript.

This library does not provide a full dashboard solution, but is intended to provide the necessary plumbing for one to create one with only knowledge of HTML/JavaScript. Because the communications layer uses NetworkTables, you can connect to all FRC languages (C++, Java, LabVIEW, Python).

Documentation

Documentation can be found at http://pynetworktables2js.readthedocs.org/

Installation

py -3 -m pip install pynetworktables2js

pip install pynetworktables2js

Why make an HTML/Javascript dashboard?

TL;DR: It’s simpler.

pynetworktables2js lowers the barrier of entry for teams that want an additional way to tune/control their robot with a minimal amount of programming.

Lots of students and mentors know how to create simple web pages to display content, and there’s lots of resources out there for creating dynamic content for webpages that use javascript. There is a lot of visually appealing content that others have created using web technologies – why not leverage those resources to make something cool to control your robot?

Usage

You can just distribute your HTML files, and run a pynetworktables server using the following command from inside the directory:

python3 -m pynetworktables2js

Or on Windows:

py -3 -m pynetworktables2js

This will start a pynetworktables2js server using Tornado (which is installed by default) and it will serve the current directory. You can navigate your browser (I recommend Chrome) to http://127.0.0.1:8888 and see your website.

You will want to also pass either the --robot or --team switch:

py -3 -m pynetworktables2js --robot roborio-XXXX-frc.local
py -3 -m pynetworktables2js --team XXXX

Dashboard mode currently doesn’t work, as the underlying support in pynetworktables hasn’t been implemented yet for the newer FRC Driver Station.

python3 tornado_server.py --robot 127.0.0.1

python3 tornado_server.py --robot roborio-XXX.local

python3 tornado_server.py --dashboard

Contributing new changes

pynetworktables2js is intended to be a project that all members of the FIRST community can quickly and easily contribute to. If you find a bug, or have an idea that you think others can use:

1. Fork this git repository to your GitHub account

2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)

3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')

4. Push to the branch (git push -u origin my-new-feature)

5. Create new Pull Request on GitHub

One place in particular I would love to see contributions is in adding useful JavaScript functions/objects that make creating dashboards even easier!

Authors

Leon Tan of FRC Team 1418 did the initial research/work to get this working, and created an initial working prototype for Team 1418’s 2015 Dashboard, which was instrumental to winning an Innovation In Control award at the 2015 Greater DC Regional.

Dustin Spicuzza cleaned stuff up, rewrote things, added more functionality, wrote documentation, and packaged it so other teams could use it.