Repository with the Spartronics code for the Dashboard for FRC 2017-STEAMWorks game. This dashboard is built atop the python implementation of networktables. Coupled with standard python webserver tech (here, tornado), the result is a webserver running on the driver's station that can read and control networktable values. Now, we can connect a standard web browser to the server and develop a custom dashboard build atop standard web technologies.

If you:

• wonder why SendableChooser is so weird/flaky
• were disappointed by the antiquated collection of interface elements available in SmartDashboard
• were unwilling to invest precious time learning VFX/java GUI plugins

this approach may be for you.

To run the dashboard:

1. make sure you have python installed (tested with both 3.6 and 2.7)
2. make sure the correct python modules are installed (pynetworktables, pynetworktable2js)
3. start dashboard server: python DashboardServer.py
4. point your favorite web browser to http://localhost:5080, Firefox is recommended over Chrome.

Drop a shortcut to start.bat in the startup folder: Win+R, enter shell:startup.

Put a shortcut to Chrome there as well, and a shortcut to the driver station. The driver station shortcut has to be marked "Run as Administrator" in its Properties window. Also, disable UAC (the window-dimming 'are you sure' thing) otherwise the dashboard won't start up on boot.

We've found that Chrome is flaky when it comes to mjpg streams. We therefore highly recommend that you use Firefox as your primary web brower for this application.

From the pynetworktables2js docs:

NetworkTables is type sensitive, whereas Javascript is loosely typed. This function will not check the type of the value that you are trying to put, so you must be careful to only put the correct values (types) that are expected. If your robot tries to retrieve the value and it is an unexpected type, an exception will be thrown and your robot may crash. Make sure you test your code – you have been warned.

python - is the language atop-which the dashboard support resides.

pynetworktables - is the core technology. You can use standard 'pip' mechanism to install this module into your python interpreter: 'python -m pip install pynetworktables'

pynetworktables2js - is a small python module that forwards NetworkTables key/values over a Websocket, so that you can easily write a Driver Station Dashboard for your robot in HTML5 + JavaScript. Included in the package are JavaScript utilities to connect with the websocket. Install via: 'python -m pip install pynetworktables2js'

bootstrap - is a common / basic collection of widgets and styling templates for website development.

Thanks to the robotpy maintainers for pynetworktables!