Multi-function display
1.0 Arwes Node-RED 4.0
This content was created for an older version and is outdated. Check version 2 for an up-to-date description!
The MFDs (Multi-function display) are in reality just one display that I salvaged from an old laptop. It is not running GameGlass, like so many others SimPits out there do. Mostly because I’m not a fan of touchscreens or vendor lock-in. There is also the little detail that GameGlass is simply not available for my operating system and does not know about all the Space Pew Pew I usually do.
When I was evaluating what to use to program mine I was caught between the difficult choice to learn yet another fancy framework, like Raylib, that would do OpenGL ES 2.0 without X11 on the Raspberry Pi, or OpenFrameworks, or simply go with something I knew already.
In the end I just threw the might of my CoffeeLake at it and went with React since most of the data was already available via Node-RED over Websockets anyway. Also… Arwes is just so cool (alpha version or not) 🤩 and I had some experience with it thanks to my Streaming Overlay that I also wrote with Arwes. Connecting it to Node-RED was just a matter of installing Socket.IO to transport the messages. It was all a very hacky mess but it got the job done.
Watch this video on YouTube PeerTube BekoPharm
The source is not available and the used alpha version of Arwes is deprecated. I rewrote the hacky mess with version 2 that is also using the next gen of Arwes.
Links
- ARWES, a Futuristic Sci-Fi UI Web Framework
- Node-RED, Low-code programming for event-driven applications
- Socket.IO, Bidirectional and low-latency communication for every platform
- React.dev, library for web and native user interfaces
- raylib.com, simple and easy-to-use library to enjoy videogames programming
- openframeworks.cc, toolkit designed to assist the creative process by providing a simple and intuitive framework for experimentation