Web Developer Getting Started Guide

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Revision as of 01:31, 24 November 2023 by MartinW (talk | contribs)
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Web Developer coming soon. Available with Flowcode 10.1 or higher.

To start web developer, run Flowcode and select NEW PROJECT

Select App Developer tab then select Blank Web then New Blank Web Developer Project

Web Developer1.png

Select File, Save As... and name your project e.g. MyFirstWDProject.

I would recommend not to have any spaces or use underscore for spaces within the project name and directory path.

The project file extension will be .fcsx

Creating a basic webpage containing a shape and text with no interaction

The only components that will work within Web Developer are contained within These 5 sections:

Web Developer2.png

If a component is selected from creation, they will not work.


Within Component Libraries > Basic, add a Shape and Label to the 2D panel > Webpage Design.

If you can't see the 2D Web design panel, select View > Webpage Design

Change the shape via it's properties to any shape and colour and change the text to any size and colour:

Web Developer3.png


Web Developer4.png

To create the webpage, select Build > Create web page...

A pop-up with briefly show the path of the created webpage:

Web Developer4a.png

A HTML file will be generated within the same folder as your project file:

Web Developer5.png

You can either load the html file in your preferred device e.g. tablet, mobile, PC etc or if you want to wait until your project has finished you have the option of viewing and interacting with the webpage within Flowcode's 'Html Viewer.

To do the latter, after the webpage has been created, select Build > View web page...

Web Developer6.png

If you make any changes, select Build > Create web page... before you select Build > View web page...

If you run the html file within a browser, e.g. Chrome, you will see they are identical:

Web Developer7.png


Action on a button press

On a press of a button, we will be setting text to display how many times button has been clicked and adding an indicator to toggle state on each button press.

Start by creating a new Web Developer project for example ActionOnButtonPress.

Add a Button from Component Libraries > Inputs

Change the properties e.g. Handle (for the button reference),shape, text, colour etc.

Also withtin Propertie, under Interaction, select the dropdown arrow beside OnClick Macro and select <Add new>.

A Create a New Macro window will pop-up Just change the name to the button reference e.g WebButton1, select OK

Web Developer8.png

Now add a Label from Component Libraries > Basic and add an Indicator from Component Libraries > Outputs to the Webpage Design panel.

For the label properties change the font to Calibri, Font Size to 16.

So we can align all the components up, and get a good idea of what it will look like, change the Text to Button has been pressed 0 times

Web Developer8a.png

There are various icons that can be clicked to make the layout neater, e.g swipe over the components you what to align then click Align centre.

Web Developer9.png

We will be adding three global variables from the {X} of the Project Explorer.

Web Developer10.png

The variables are: Boolean called Toggle with an initial value of 0 and an Integer called Count, also with an initial value of 0 and a String called LabelString which can be left to the default length of 200

If added correctly you should see:

Web Developer11.png

Within the user macro that has just been created e.g WebButton1, place the component function macros or command icons e.g calculation boxes, decision icon etc.

Place a calculation icon with the following:

Toggle =  !Toggle
Count = Count + 1
LabelString = "Button has been pressed "
LabelString = LabelString + ToString$(Count)
LabelString = LabelString + " times"

The ToString$ function is found within the caluation functions (f$):

Web Developer12.png

It's function is to convert any integer to a string so it can be used to display within Labels or Text Block components

Select Components from within Poject Explorer, then for Indicicator1, drag SetState to the WebButton1 user macro.

Within the macro that pops up after dragging enter Toggle just under Expression:

Web Developer14.png

Insted of typing toggle you can slect the dropdown arrow just inder expression and drag the variaible to the expression box:

Web Developer15.png

Drag Label SetText to the WebButton1 user macro and enter (or drag) the string variable.

Your WebButton1 user macro should now look like this:

Web Developer13.png

The red star is where that Icon or component has been added but not yet saved, so make sure you save the project.

It's important to note that unlike Embedded and App Developer, the only code required in main is to initially set a state, value or text etc.

There is no continuous loop.

Think of everything in the Web Developer the equivalent of interrupt macro driven only.

For example, on a click of a button or switch change or on receiving data.

For the project to successfully work this is Main:

Web Developer16.png

After Build > Create web page, then Build > View web page the Html viewer is working as intended :

Web Developer17.png


The html file is now ready for loading on a browser on you choice of devices.

Retrieve data from an API URL

From now, as it's getting more complicated, there will be an example project files you can download just in case you make any mistakes.

There is a public free fake API for testing site we will use - Fake API website

If you look at website, you will see tags within double quotes, e.g. "id" there will also be a reference after e.g. :1

You will also see "title": "sunt" etc.

Another tag is "Body" and you can see it starts with "quia, this is the data we ae capuring.