Webserver - Restructured

Owned by Geo (Unlicensed)
May 04, 2022

Introduction

The webserver service allows for content to be interacted with as input and output on a webpage in Javascript-enabled browsers.

Docker name: webserver

Input

  • required sensors: none

  • required actuators: none

  • required services: none

Any Javascript-supported content (e.g.: text, media files, bytestream, HTML, etc.) can be used as input.

Output

The webpage created can display any type of output supported by regular Javascript-enabled pages. Thus the content from other services, or coming from any other source can be displayed on the page as long as it is Javascript-supported.

Parameters

None

Initialisation

Using the service

  1. connect any browser to the SIC framework by navigating to https://<serverIP>:11880

    • the browser is automatically registered as a device, and its identifier is shown upon load

    • the identifier is different each time the page reloads

  2. create content to be displayed

    • custom images (i.e. that don’t have a public URL) can be embedded using Base64 encoding

    • the Bootstrap framework (v4.6) is used to render a styled HTML <body> of an application through websocket-based communication

    • any <button> element automatically sends its contents to the application

    • <div> elements can have built-in effects:

      • chatbox: shows a text-type input, from which the input is sent to the Dialogflow service upon submission.

      • english_flag: shows an English flag, which when clicked upon will send a command to set the language to 'en-US'.

      • listening_icon: shows a listening icon (in the form of a microphone), which shows a user when the microphone is open.

      • speech_text: shows a live transcript of the text currently recognised by the Dialogflow service.

      • vu_logo: shows a VU logo.

    • adding the class class=audioEnabled in the content allows the browser device to also function as a full-fledged microphone and speaker device

  3. interact with the displayed content (e.g.: end-user input, application-driven rendering) on the secure websocket https://<serverIP>:11881

Example

An example of displaying content as a SIC webpage can be found here.

Known Issues

  • warnings about a self-signed SSL certificate being used should be ignored/circumvented.

    • on Java-capable devices, the computer-browser program can do this automatically.

    • on Pepper robots, the tablet is automatically connected as well, although a pop-up will need to be dismissed on the tablet upon first connection.

  • browser permissions for microphone and speakers

    • most of the time requires user interaction (e.g.: pressing a browser button)

    • not all browsers support this (e.g.: iOS Safari is not supported)