#freemasterdash Create standalone Freemaster interactive MCU application with Electron

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#freemasterdash Create standalone Freemaster interactive MCU application with Electron

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danny30
Contributor I

The goal of this project is to provide examples and proof of concept on the integration of Freemaster JSON RPC javascript client library and Electron framework. Electron is an open source javascript framework built by Github that can bundle and compile standalone cross platform applications for Windows, Linux and Mac.

We already know that Freemaster Lite can be used with Chrome browser in the webinars. However, this requires user to install compatible Chrome browser and a browser is still being limited for what a browser can do.

With Electron, we can provide an installer to the user that has everything bundled, including its bundled Chrome instance. Hence, this approach will make it look more like native app. More over and unlike tradition browser, Electron exposes NodeJS APIs that allows more powerful operations on the host. Such as open and read a file from disk. Save log data extendedly directly to disk storage. Open sockets and make data available to the network. Access host hardware for instance serial, printer port, etc...

In this project, I plan to use bidirectional communication to the MIMXRT1020-EVK MCU target board. The host application will poll MCU sensor data and provide plot.ly charting for time series data. For extra visual candy, an 3-axis plot is provided for gyro data. Of course, data processing will be done from the host application. For MCU input, it may take uint16_t variable for LED color output. Logging data to disk can be switched on.

MIMXRT1020-EVK target board meets the needs of this project as it has various peripheral onboard as well as an Ethernet connection.

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MichalH
NXP Apps Support
NXP Apps Support

Dear Adrian,

thank you very much for sharing your plans with us. This looks like very interesting application. Use of the Electron framework is a great idea. Do you plan to use a desktop FreeMASTER or FreeMASTER Lite as a back-end interface? Please use this discussion thread if you face any issues during your development.

It would be great if you could share even a simpler Electron demo with just a few values displayed and with a simple graph which works with FreeMASTER. Such a standalone dashboard example would be greatly appreciated by this community users. And of course we will be even happier if you would share your final design with us too.

Thank you,

Michal

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danny30
Contributor I

Hello Michal, I think it is only possible to use Freemaster Lite with Electron. It would be interesting to get a working demo. When I can expect to receive the iMXRT 1050-EVK to get started on this project ? Regards

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