Client-server infrastructure

[wchill]

Currently Twilight runs on only a single machine. It needs to be reworked to support a networked infrastructure.

How this would work:

• 1 machine running a Twilight command + control server, with an external facing REST API and connections to Groot
• Individual panels running a Twilight display client, connected to the C+C server using network sockets
• Web application, mobile applications, etc. controlling Twilight using the REST API

To support the current mode of operation, this can be done by separating the frame generation code from the hardware operation code. In twilight.py, we currently write directly to the serial ports as necessary; most of the refactoring work in this issue can be completed by replacing the serial port objects with socket objects and adding logic to allow for attachment/detachment of Twilight display clients at runtime.

For the REST API, at least the following operations should be supported. Additions would be welcome:

• Adding plugins/filters to a plugin queue
• Modifying plugin/filter settings (brightness, tempo, etc.)
• Querying Twilight statistics (uptime, FPS, number of panels, etc.)

[modi95]

Need webhooks for merges to master.

[modi95]

Command dispatcher for pis as well as automated code pushes to teensys.

[warut-vijit]

We can probably begin working on this as soon as PR #19 is merged

[warut-vijit]

In addition to the items provided by @wchill above, the REST API should have:

• Save/create/load/edit/delete filter and plugin configs
• Query/edit/reset filter and plugin parameters (eg. change hue for monochrome filter)
• Edit brightness as parameters outside of filters

[wchill]

For reading which parameters can be adjusted, you can use the default parameters dictionary passed to config loader. We may also want to extend the dictionary to support specifying constraints on the input value.

[wchill]

Starting point for server-side Twisted code: https://github.com/acm-uiuc/twilight/blob/39401335475bd101ead269aeb4e5a20ef765dfc2/server/app.py

You can use telnet to talk to the server code directly for the time being.