Improvement of the YoctoHub web interface

Improvement of the YoctoHub web interface

This week, we publish a new firmware for all the YoctoHubs, a new VirtualHub, as well as a new GatewayHub. The modifications mainly concern the web interface and their aim is to improve the ease of use of our modules through the GatewayHub and the configuration of the YoctoHubs. Let's have a look at the new features.





First of all, we improved the reactivity of the web interface. This gain is most noticeable on YoctoHubs that have many submodules.

A "Show debug information" button


We also added a "Show debug information" button on the bottom of the main page. This button is particularly useful if you need to contact Yoctopuce support.

The new Show debug information button
The new Show debug information button



Indeed, when customers contact us with support questions, most of the time we are missing some information. For example, the firmware version, the module logs, the value of some parameters, ...

This new button opens a windows containing all the information consolidated in one location. You don't have to think about which information to send us, simply send us the content of this page and we can directly help you.

Concretely, here is the information displayed on this page:

  • The list of all the detected modules
  • The value of all the parameters of all the modules (without the passwords)
  • The logs of all the modules
  • The list of all the files uploaded on the modules, but not their content
  • The content of potential core dumps of the YoctoHubs


The window enabling you to dump all the debug information
The window enabling you to dump all the debug information



The "save" button saves the content of the window in HTML format so that you can send it to us by email.

Actually, this page is almost more useful to us that to the users :-)

The new "API Browser" window


The other page that changed is the "API Browser" page. You can still access this page from the detail panel of a module, but it doesn't display in a new browser window, but directly in a panel of the current window.

The new API Browser panel
The new API Browser panel



For those of you who have never used the API Browser, it enables you to access and modify any module attribute. It's a kind of super configuration page. This page is very useful for advanced users who want to quickly configure a module without having to write a short program or to use our command line API.

From now on, it also allows you to obtain requests to be executed if you want to interact with our modules without using one of our libraries (see: Driving Yoctopuce modules the hard way). When you apply a modification, the performed request is displayed at the bottom of the page.

The performed request is detailed at the bottom of the page
The performed request is detailed at the bottom of the page



Outside of aesthetical consideration, the interest for modifying the API Browser is that internally all the requests are sent to the modules by using the same WebSocket channel. And, as we are going to see, this allows us to work around some limitations that we encountered until now.

API Browser in the GatewayHub


For those who don't know, the GatewayHub enables you to access YoctoHubs which are located behind NAT filters. For more details, you can read the following post: A gateway to remotely access YoctoHubs.

You could already access the basic functions of Yoctopuce modules through the GatewayHub, but the API Browser didn't work. You had to use our command line tools or our programming libraries to change an attribute which didn't show in the configuration window.

The new version of the GatewayHub corrects this problem and you can now use all the features of the YoctoHub as if you were directly connected to it.

To use the API Browser, you must have at least version 34990 of the GatewayHub. As the API Browser is stored in the GatewayHub, this works even with YoctoHubs using an old firmware.

Configuring the submodules of a YoctoHub with the VirtualHub


We explained in a previous post how to configure Yoctopuce modules connected with the VirtualHub. But this works only for modules directly connected to the computer, because submodules connected to a YoctoHub are not recognized.

To configure the submodules of a YoctoHub, you must necessarily access the web interface of the YoctoHub. In the case of a YoctoHub-Ethernet or a YoctoHub-Wireless-g, it's not a big issue, but with a YoctoHub-GSM it's more complex because most phone service providers block incoming connections with a firewall. And thus you can't access the web interface of the YoctoHub-GSM even if you know its IP address.

Thanks to the changes we performed, you can now access the API Browser of the submodules of a YoctoHub. The API Browser allows you to access the functions of the YoctoHub (YNetwork, YFiles, and so on) but it also lists all the modules connected to the YoctoHub. This list is located in the Whitepage section and for each module you can find its serial number, its logical name, and most of all, an "Open API Browser" button which opens a new panel with the submodule API Browser.

The submodules are listed in the Whitepage section
The submodules are listed in the Whitepage section



For exampe, if you have a Yocto-Light-V3 connected to a YoctoHub-Ethernet which is itself connected to the USB port of a computer, you can access the Yocto-Light-V3 API Browser with the VirtualHub the following way:

In the VirtualHub interface, you open the API Browser of the YoctoHub-Ethernet. Then you scroll down until the "Whitepage" section and click on the "Open API Browser" button of the Yocto-Light-V3. The API Browser of the Yocto-Light-V3 opens in a new panel and you can then configure the module.

The API Browser opens in a new panel
The API Browser opens in a new panel




Conclusion

We did a first pass on the web interface of the YoctoHubs, in order to remove some limitations we encountered. This new version of the API Browser is a first step, but we have other ideas to make it even more user-friendly. If you have other improvement ideas, don't hesitate to tell us.




1 - crofter Saturday,april 06,2019 22H55

show device functions now not showing device functions

2 - seb (Yocto-Team)Monday,april 08,2019 14H22

@crofter: Thank for the bug report.
We have just release a new version of the VirtualHub and all firmware with the fix, please upgrade your firmware or VirtualHub.

Yoctopuce, get your stuff connected.