Question

I have a project that I am putting together it is working well so far.

But I am a bit lost on where to start python wise. The basics of the projects are A lighting system that is controlled by an Arduino over a wireless link (Already setup) that receives commands from a python program through serial over a xBee network (This part is coded and working). I want the project controllable over the internet.

I was thinking about running it so that the python program runs an http server which is fairly easy to setup.

Here is where I am having trouble as I have not played with python in the past. How do I get the program to respond to request and run code depending on what was clicked on the page?

Can anyone point me in the right direction please

Answer 1

You can write a server application using a framework like Tornado that listens for messages on an arbitrary port.

However it sounds like you want to build a web interface. For this you should just pick a web framework. My favourite micro framework is Flask. Their quickstart I just linked to shows how easy it is to get a simple site running.

Then you would write a function for each action in the user interface. And each of those functions would be activated when the user clicks a link (or a button) that visits the associated URL.

@app.route('/')
def index():
    return render_template('index.html')

@app.route('/dim_lights/<room>')
def dim_lights(**kwargs):
    dim_lights_for_room(kwargs['room'])

The 'index.html' template would contain links like <a href="/dim_lights/lounge">Dim the Lights in the Lounge</a>.

Does that makes sense?