Vesta

Vesta is a Vestaboard client library for Python. It provides API clients and character encoding utilities.

Installation

Vesta requires Python 3.11 or later and has no other runtime dependencies. It can be installed via PyPI.

$ python -m pip install vesta

Usage

API Clients

Cloud API

CloudClient provides a client interface for interacting with a Vestaboard using the Cloud API, which supersedes the Read / Write API. It supports reading and writing messages and configuring message transitions.

Note that a Vestaboard API token is required. This token can be obtained from the Developer section of the web app.

import vesta

cloud_client = vesta.CloudClient("api_token")

# Write and read messages:
message = vesta.encode_text("{67} Hello, World {68}")
assert cloud_client.write_message(message)
assert cloud_client.read_message() == message

# Configure how new messages animate onto the board:
cloud_client.set_transition("wave", "gentle")

Subscription API

SubscriptionClient provides a client interface for interacting with multiple Vestaboards using the Subscription API.

Note that an API secret and key is required to get subscriptions or send messages. These credentials can be created from the Developer section of the web app.

Messages can be posted as either text strings or two-dimensional arrays of character codes representing the exact positions of characters on the board.

If text is specified, the lines will be centered horizontally and vertically. Character codes will be inferred for alphanumeric and punctuation characters, or they can be explicitly specified using curly braces containing the character code (such as {5} or {65}).

import vesta

subscription_client = vesta.SubscriptionClient("api_key", "api_secret")

# List subscriptions and send them messages:
subscriptions = subscription_client.get_subscriptions()
for subscription in subscriptions:
    subscription_client.send_message(subscription["id"], "{67} Hello, World {68}")

Local API

LocalClient provides a client interface for interacting with a Vestaboard over the local network using Vestaboard's Local API.

Note that Vestaboard owners must first request a Local API enablement token in order to use the Local API.

import vesta

local_client = vesta.LocalClient()

# The Vestaboard's Local API must be enabled to get its Local API key. After
# you've done this once, you can save the key somewhere safe and pass it
# directly to LocalClient() for future client initializations.
local_api_key = local_client.enable(ENABLEMENT_TOKEN)
# e.g. local_client = LocalClient(local_api_key)
assert local_client.enabled

# Once enabled, you can write and read messages:
message = vesta.encode_text("{67} Hello, World {68}")
assert local_client.write_message(message)
assert local_client.read_message() == message

VBML API

VBMLClient provides a client interface for Vestaboard's VBML (Vestaboard Markup Language) API.

import vesta

component = Component(
    "Vestaboard Markup Language",
    justify="center",
    align="center",
    width=22,
    height=6,
)

vbml_client = vesta.VBMLClient()
vesta.pprint(vbml_client.compose([component]))

Read / Write API

ReadWriteClient provides a client interface for interacting with a Vestaboard using the deprecated Read / Write API.

Vestaboard has renamed the Read / Write API to the Cloud API. This client is deprecated; switch to CloudClient, which offers the same functionality plus message transitions.

Platform Client

Client provides a client interface for interacting with the deprecated Vestaboard Platform API.

This is the original Vestaboard Platform API. It is deprecated and has been superseded by the other APIs listed above. In particular, Vestaboard encourages users of the Platform API to switch to the Subscription API, which offers nearly identical functionality.

Character Encoding

All Vestaboard characters (letters, numbers, symbols, and colors) are encoded as integer character codes. Vesta includes some useful routines for working with these character codes.

encode() encodes a string as a list of character codes. In addition to printable characters, the string can contain character code sequences inside curly braces, such as {5} or {65}.

>>> vesta.encode("{67} Hello, World {68}")
[67, 0, 8, 5, 12, 12, 15, 55, 0, 23, 15, 18, 12, 4, 0, 68]

encode_row() encodes a string as a row of character codes. It builds on encode() by providing alignment control.

>>> vesta.encode_row("{67} Hello, World {68}", align="center")
[0, 0, 0, 67, 0, 8, 5, 12, 12, 15, 55, 0, 23, 15, 18, 12, 4, 0, 68, 0, 0, 0]

encode_text() encodes a string of text into rows of character codes, further building on encode() and encode_row() with the addition of alignment, margin control, and line breaks.

>>> encode_text("multiple\nlines\nof\ntext", align="center", valign="middle")
[
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 13, 21, 12, 20, 9, 16, 12, 5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 12, 9, 14, 5, 19, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 15, 6, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 20, 5, 24, 20, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
]

Lastly, pprint() can be used to pretty-print encoded characters to the console, which can be useful during development.

>>> vesta.pprint([0, 0, 0, 67, 0, 8, 5, 12, 12, 15, 55, 0, 23, 15, 18, 12, 4, 0, 68, 0, 0, 0])
| | | |◼︎| |H|E|L|L|O|,| |W|O|R|L|D| |◼︎| | | |

Examples

• Vestaboard REPL
• Olympic Medal Standings

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.