How much is doable in HTML only?

Hi Guys

I'm a HomeSeer user and am planning to switch to Indigo (assuming my trial goes well). One thing I get really tried of in HSTouch (client app) is redesigning layouts 5 times (IPhone landscape and portrait, iPad landscape and portrait and kindle fires wallmounted) landscape only). I'd much rather take the time and build a responsive layout in HTML that changes based on viewport size.

Here's my current home screen:

KindleFire UI 600px.jpg (156.89 KiB) Viewed 1217 times

Nothing too elaborate. A secondary wish to keep my 3 KindelFires that are wall mounted. (Will also be $100+ cheaper per screen than MacMini). Don't get me wrong, if the mini's are way better, i'll buy them (over time)

How much would I lose doing pure HTML client? I guess my biggest concern is data binding to get device status updates without polling or refreshing (or at least doing it on an object by object basis instead of the entire page. Ideally an MV* framework (Backbone, Angular, Ember, et al) would be best. Anyone ever done this? Are the tools/hooks there?

Right now, 80% or more of the stuff I do on the screen is press buttons for events (Dining, Cooking, Movie, Bedtime, Pause Sonos), so could live without a lot of it while acquire the minis if I have to. I'm just getting more and more into front-end dev, so it would be a good learning experience that I could do at my own leaisure.


TIA

Mark

I'd much rather take the time and build a responsive layout in HTML that changes based on viewport size.

There are several options for integration with your own site, but the most common would be either to use the JSON interface (somewhat limited), iframe content to smaller control pages, or write a plugin within which you interface.

You will be polling in JavaScript/AJAX requests to the JSON service if you are going the first route - I would not recommend that way unless you have limited devices per page. The second would be a good potential -- if your designed the responsive site to have lots of smaller IFRAMES pointing to normal, Indigo control pages it would work fairly slick. I assume you will be using something similar to Twitter's Bootstrap (or something that operates similarly)... obviously there are a few tradeoffs in that the IFRAMES themselves are not adapting, only the wrapper/areas.

Designing your own plugin is a possibility but a slower process to get it right in your case. Python has very easy to use web servers that you can utilize (welcome to see the small one spun up in my HousePad Indigo Client Plugin).

I tend to just code up different size control pages, personally, despite the options.

Adam

Thanks Adam

Yes, I will be using bootstrap. I've been testing recently and got some good results (with regular HTML pages) and ability to change theme by selecting the a new one from a list. This would be useful for selecting a dark colored them on the wall mounted touch screen at night.

I've only just got into JS seriously recently and about to start playing with some of the frameworks. Read an interesting tutorial last knight about making a python server and corresponding html client using backbone and knockout. I'm envisaging this as a project to really get my hands dirty with MV* and JS frameworks. etc.

Regards

mark