Re-Facing the Webcontroller

An interesting thing about the web controller I've posted about earlier is that its interface is a web browser.  Its configuration, current state, and control are executed through Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and yes even MS IE, plus all those others (did you sense a bias?)  The controller is fronted by a web-server.  Furthermore, the designers decided to use cgi calls to change the configuration of the device.  For example, by issuing the string the browser address line: http://192.168.13.15/setoutps.cgi?0000W12=TTL1+ON, the #1 digital output line will be turned on and the browser will be refreshed to show that change.  I remind you, this is from a web browser connected into the same network as the controller.  The two could be inches or miles apart, or through a wireless network.

Consider now leveraging that design with a couple other web technologies that are widely documented and FREE.  Now we have the possibility of getting rid of those ugly yellow screens and replace them with a really flashy custom industrial-looking laptop control panel.  I will post some prototypes later.

Specifically, I will need one more server,  Zend Server Community Edition.  Zend Server gives me the two things I need: a web/application server executing PHP.  The web server needs to send me pages with Javascript in them.  With Javascript, I can do a lot of manipulating of the current page without re-loading the page or requesting a new page.  Javascript also gives me the ability to do requests of other web pages and return that data to the current page.  This technology is called AJAX.  By design and for security reasons a governing committee request that browsers restrict these special page requests to only be from the same web server the Javascript pages are served from.  After a little research, I learned this designed can be programmed around by just a little bit of PHP running the web/app server.  Works for me.

In the end I am going for a single web page that displays the schematic of the brewery, with point and click controls and animated diagrams.

Why all of this work?  Because it is some programming I want to learn, and if I can do it, the result will be pretty cool!!!

More Later...