rcfc - Remote Control For Computers

Welcome to RCFC. This is a pet project started to help out with some automation around the house.

It provides a way to write Python functions that can be exposed as buttons on a website. Thereis also an Android app RCFC that would automatically connect to RCFC servers and provide a UI to the user.

Writing native phone software was very tedious, so RCFC aims to fill in the gap with quick-to-write phone GUIs with a backend that you can quickly iterate on.

Use it to

• Provide a GUI to a headless device, such as a Raspberry Pi
• Create a quick mock-up backed up by a real service
• Automate routines in your day, like setting up a workflow through your phone.

Installing

Just pip install rcfc. Note, this is only supported by Python 3.6 and later (no legacy Python)

There's barely any types of buttons!

So, in typical open source fashion, this is a work in progress. Buttons will be added as time goes on, such as color-picker buttons, input buttons, toggles and more. Write an issue if there's something you'd like to see (or submit a PR)

Starting the server

We run a bottle webserver underneath the hood to serve provide a REST API and provide a demo webserver.

To start the server, do the following:

from rcfc import server

server.start()

Now if you navigate to http://<ip-address>:7232 you should see a simple webpage that provides a simple UI (long term plans is Android App)

Buttons

Simple

To get a simple push button, you just need to decorate one of your Python functions like so:

from rcfc import button

@button.simple("Press Me!")
def button_has_been_pressed():
    print("This button has been pressed")

This will provide a pressable button with the text you provide (in this case, "Press Me!") This is great if you want to do things like turn on/turn off something, perform a one time action, etc.

Toggles

A toggle provides an on / off switch

from rcfc import button

def get_state():
    # write your own function that returns the current state of the toggle
    return True

@button.toggle("Toggle", get_state)
def button_has_been_toggled(value):
    print(f"The value is {value}")

The function decorated will be passed a True/False value when the toggle is set. There is also a getter function that reflects the correct state.

Other Input Methods

Sliders

A slider provides a range of input values (such as what may be used in a dimmer)

from rcfc import input_methods

def get_value():
    #write your own function that returns the current state of the slider
    return 30

@input_methods.slider("Slider Text", get_value)
def set_slider_value(value):
    print(f"The value is {value}")

If you need to customize the min/max (Default is 0/100), you can pass in the range as an additional argument

@input_methods.slider("Slider Text", get_value, input_range=(50,60))

Left/Right Arrows

A set of arrows that let you choose a left/right option

from rcfc import input_methods

@input_methods.left_right_arrows("Arrows Text")
def set_arrows(value):
    print(f"The value set is {value}")

The value passed down will be either input_methods.DIRECTIONAL.LEFT or input_methods.DIRECTIONAL.RIGHT.

Colorpicker

A color picker giving RGB values

from rcfc import input_methods

def get_value():
    #write your own function that returns the current state of the slider
    return (30, 255, 0)

@input_methods.colorpicker("Colorpicker text", get_value)
def set_color(value):
    print(f"The value set is {value}")

The value set is a tuple in the form of (red, green, blue)

Grouping Buttons

It is possible to group buttons.

You may assign a button a single group, like so:

@button.simple("Click me!", group="Group Alpha")

or you may assign multiple groups to the button:

@button.simple("Click me!", group=["Group Alpha", "Group Omega"])

Demo

There is a built-in demo if you'd like to see it in action. Simply execute rcfc_demo on your shell (or make demo if you're in the project) and a demo server will launch on port 7232. Open up http://localhost:7232 to see buttons that are available. You can see the source code at demo source code

You can also check the companion Android GUI project, which makes it look a lot nicer. See it here

Why Bottle under the hood? Why not use Flask, Django, Pyramid, etc.?

Bottle had a very small footprint and very few dependencies. The goal is to get this project up and going as quickly as possible.

Useful Links

Want to contribute? Check out our guide

Want to write a GUI? Check out our API docs here

Want to see a video explaining the history and background of the project? Check here