You will need the following before you can get started.
* [PlatformIO](https://platformio.org/) - IDE for development
* [NPM](https://www.npmjs.com/) - For building the interface
* Bash shell, or Git Bash if you are under windows
### Installing in PlatformIO
Pull the project and add it to PlatformIO as a project folder (File > Add Project Folder).
PlatformIO should download the ESP8266 platform and the project library dependencies automatically.
Once the platform and libraries are downloaded the back end should be compiling.
### Building the interface
The interface has been configured with create-react-app and react-app-rewired so I can customize the build for the MCU. The large artefacts are gzipped and source maps and service worker are excluded.
You will find the interface code in the ./interface directory. Change to this directory with your bash shell (or Git Bash) and use the standard commands you would with any react app built with create-react-app:
**NB: The build command will also delete the previously built interface (the ./data/www directory) and replace it with the freshly built one, ready for upload to the device.**
#### Running the interface locally
```bash
npm start
```
You can run the interface locally for development, you need to modify the endpoint root path and enable CORS for this to work:
* The endpoint root path can be found in Endpoint.js (./interface/src/constants/). This needs to be the root URL of the device running the back end, for example "http://192.168.0.6".
* CORS can be enabled for the back end by uncommenting the -D ENABLE_CORS build flag in platformio.ini and re-deploying.
Standard configuration settings, such as build flags, libraries and device configuration can be found in platformio.ini. See the [PlatformIO docs](http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/projectconf.html) for full details on what you can do with this.
By default, the target device is "esp12e". This is a common ESP8266 variant with 4mb of flash though any device with at least 2mb of flash should be fine. The settings configure the device run @ 160MHz and will upload over serial by default. You can change the upload mechanism to OTA by uncommenting/modifying the relevant lines in platformio.ini.
As well as containing the interface, the SPIFFS image (in the ./data folder) contains configuration files for each of the configurable features.
The config files can be found in the ./data/config directory:
File | Description
---- | -----------
apSettings.json | Access point settings
ntpSettings.json | NTP synchronization settings
otaSettings.json | OTA Update configuration
wifiSettings.json | WiFi connection settings
The default WiFi settings configure the device to bring up an access point on start up:
SSID: "ESP8266-React"
Password: "esp-react"
You use this access point to configure the device, so editing the above files isn't strictly necessary.
