Really need some advice to get an application onto my website.

electromanj

Hello all. I have been working with the Spinneret lately and I am very interested (obsessed) in putting my GUI onto my website.http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?144918-VB.net-and-the-Spinneret&p=1153936#post1153936 . From what I have been able to learn so far the form that I made in VB.net is not able to go to a webpage. I looked all around the web, and joined a .net forum, but before I go any further I thought I might ask you fine folks for help.

Here is where I am at. I have a Webhosting account with Godaddy as well as a domain http://www.prototerm.com/. (It's new so please be kind...) Currently I am using Wordpress for web design. I have Visual Basic 2010 express which is what I designed the GUI with.

How in the world wide web do I get my Led Super Controller onto my website? Do I need a different version of Visual Studio? Can I upload it with WordPress or do I need to do the whole thing with asp.net? Please speak slowly and if at possible use pictures. This website stuff is all new to me, but I have it in my head that I can turn on and off an Led from my website and I like the .net stuff.

Thanks!
traVis.

stamptrol

Hi Travis,

I don't use Godaddy, but my Startlogic account is also aimed at first-timers.

Basically your service should give you a method to upload files to a folder on the server. This is usually via some file transfer utility (FTP). Then, on the webpage itself, you put a link to the file in the folder.

You can see how it looks at www.siskconsult.com.

Hopefully, a Godaddy user will jump in with more specific advice.

Cheers,

Heater.

Sure you can turn a LED on and off from your web site. If you can communicate from your Web server back to your Propeller of course.

Better get genned up on HTML, CSS, Javascript and whatever server side scripting you can have on your web site.

In the simplest case you can make forms and text boxes and buttons and such in HTML, style them with CSS and have the browser post the user input back to the server. Then on the server you need some scripting, Python, PHP, Perl, whatever to accept that posted data and do whatever you want with it.

I am no expert at any of that traditional stuff so my preference is to do all the server side stuff in JavaScript running under Node.js and use websockets (the node.js socket.io module) to do all the communication from HTML GUI back to the server. websockets are dead easy with a few lines of JS in the web page and the server side.

So my systems go like:
Regular socket connection from embedded system to web server.
Web socket connections from served up WEB pages to web server.
Server side JavaScript process accepts both of those and exchanges data between them.

Except now I have discovered that I can do all the server side stuff with Google's Go language very easily as well.

If you want to go crazy on the web page GUI side there are JavaScript tool kits to help like http://demo.qooxdoo.org

Check out the demos here: http://demo.qooxdoo.org/current/widgetbrowser/

Mike G

It's no different then the Spinneret tutorial or what you have already completed except the request takes one more hop.

[-------request------------|----------response---------]
Client-> Web server -> Spinneret -> Web server -> Client

All ya do is create a script that reads the client requests and forwards the request to the Spinneret. Wait for the Spinneret response and forward the response to the client.

Attached is a simple C# script that does just that. It looks a lot like the code in your VB.NET app, right? BTW, you cannot very easily webinize a Windows Forms application.

The concept is simple. Create a URL in the following format. Use your own URL when you get it setup and configured.
http://www.agaverobotics.com/spinneret/ajaxhandler.aspx?id=24&ledstate=on

id       = ID of the LED
ledstate = on or off

Paste the URL in your browser (or click). Change ledstate to off and press enter. This is live so feel free to view the results on the Web Cam

All that's left for you is to change the URLs in the source so they are pointing to your Spinneret, upload the C# script to your web server, then paste the URL to your new C# script in your browser. Your web server must be able to run .NET otherwise this will not work. But it's pretty easy to do PHP too. It's exactly the same concept just PHP syntax.

Now you can control LEDs attached to the Spinneret with a simple link! The link can exist on any web page anywhere.

Feel free to use the live URL above while you figure out to do this on your own.

Mike G

Attached is a PHP script that does the same thing as post #4 just a different URL

http://mikegebhard.com/spinneret/ledproxy.php?id=26&ledstate=on

electromanj

Thanks a lot for all the replies! I need to process all this information and then I'm sure I'll have more questions, or mayby even a result who knows? Thanks again!

traVis.

Don M

I use Go Daddy for my website and I have found that they have been very helpful with technical questions such as these. I think they are open 24/7 so I might suggest giving them a call and use them as a source of help also.