README.markdown

Boxxy

Boxxy is the application which powers http://live.12urenloop.be. It functionality can be divided into two big parts:

• Receive info and updates from count-von-count
• Serve this information, together with visualisations to the users

Installing & running

Install all dependencies using

npm install

Run the server with

node src/server.js

JavaScript API

Boxxy provides a JavaScript API which facilitates writing visualisations.

Initialization

If the boxxy module is in scope, the initialize call provides you with an object that has all further information and methods:

var boxxy = boxxy.initialize();

Accessible fields

The boxxy object has a number of fields. These should be used in a read-only way.

• boxxy.circuitLength is simply the length of the running track (in meters).

• boxxy.startTime is a string containing the date the event started.

• boxxy.stations holds an object with the stations. The stations are simply the bluetooth receivers positioned around the circuit.

    {
        1: {
            name: "station 1",
            id: "1",
            position: 0
        },
        ...
    }
  

  position is the position of the station along the circuit (in meters).

• boxxy.teams holds an object with all the teams and their current scores.

    {
        1:{
            name: "Politeia",
            updated: "2013-03-22T22:22:59.971Z",
            id: "1",
            laps: 23,
            station: "3"
        },
        ...
    }
  

  station refers to the ID of the station where the team was last seen. This means you can do something like:

    boxxy.stations[boxxy.teams["1"].station]
  

• boxxy.laps holds an array with the n latest laps. This n can be configured by changing the variable boxxy.maxLaps.

    [
        {
            timestamp: "2013-03-22T22:30:23.867Z",
            team:"4",
            total: 28,
            id: "113",
            reason: null,
            count: 1
        },
        {
            timestamp: "2013-03-22T22:27:12.489Z",
            team: "3",
            total: 26,
            id: "104",
            reason: "Draag de Praeses bonusronde",
            count: 3
        },
        ...
    ]
  

  total is the total amount of laps up to that point. count is the number of points assigned for the lap. This is usually one, except for bonus laps: in the case of the latter, reason can also be provided by boxxy.

Callbacks

The server will send .messages to the client using the Socket.IO library. There is no need to manually deal with these messages. Instead, the user should set callbacks in the boxxy object. All callbacks are optional (but you probably want to set at least one).

• boxxy.onPutState = function(stateDelta) {}

  This function is called when the boxxy object receives the initial list of teams, stations and laps. This method is also called when there has been a connection interrupt. The stateDelta argument is best ignored in client code, as you can use boxxy instead.

• boxxy.onAddLap = function(lap) {}

  This function is called whenever a team completes a lap. The lap argument has more information regarding the lap.

• boxxy.onUpdatePosition = function(position) {}

  When the position of a team changes, this method is called. The position argument is an object that looks like this:

    {
        timestamp: "2013-03-22T22:36:59.670Z",
        station: "4",
        team: "4"
    }
  

• boxxy.onUpdate = function() {}

  When any of the above callbacks are invocated, the onUpdate function is also called. This is useful if you want to the same thing in every callback: just set onUpdate and leave the other callbacks unset.

Functions

• boxxy.listen(uri) conects the client object to the server. You should call this after setting up all your callbacks.

• boxxy.teamsByScore() returns an array with all the teams from boxxy.teams, ordered by score (total number of laps).

HTTP API

Freezing and setting notifications

boxxy allows displaying a notification to the users. This can be done using:

curl -XPUT localhost:8080/state \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -u 'count-von-count:tetten' \
    -d '{"notification": "This is a message"}'

At some point close to the end of the competition, we may want to freeze the displayed scores. This can be done using:

curl -XPUT localhost:8080/state \
    -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -u 'count-von-count:tetten' \
    -d '{"frozen": true}'

Unfreezing can be done by setting the same parameter to false.