Node.js server for Mac OS X that allows Pebble to control PowerPoint, via AppleScript.
- Mac OS X (this server uses AppleScript to control your presentation)
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Node.js
- A Pebble watch, with PebblePoint installed
If you don't want to run the server through terminal, you can download the standalone PebblePointServer.app.
Open a terminal and run:
npm install -g pebblepoint-server
After install, you may need to rehash your path or open a new terminal to get the executable in your PATH.
Open a terminal and run:
pebblepoint-server
The server will run and open a browser window with the IP and PORT info for configuring your watch.
By default, the server runs on port 7325 (which is PEBL on a phone keypad). Port can be overridden at server start if you have a conflict on the default one:
PORT=60654 pebblepoint-server
When the server runs, an instruction page is launched in your default browser to show what IP and PORT you need to use. This also acts a simple smoketest to let you know you're ready to go.
I initially built this for myself, to use at Razorfish's Tech Summit. I work on a Mac. I build using open source software, which this is (except for the MS part). I don't develop on PCs and I know that building a simple, easily installable REST server to talk to PPT for Windows via VB isn't my bag of tea.
Simply because our corporate decks are all PPT and that's what I had a need for. It also has a very rich AppleScript command dictionary, which let me bridge the last step into controlling a .app.
No. Will you? Please do!
I think the optimal way would be for you to fork the pebblepoint_server project and make it smart about OS integration. You'd also need to make the build of an atom-shell .exe for Windows happen.
However, running Node.js on Windows seems tough to me.
So, another option would be to just make a workalike server that speaks the same simple REST protocol. You'd just need to implement something that has the functionality of the POST /go/:command section of the server guts and have a way of showing the IP and PORT to the user for config purposes.
Quite a lot, actually.
- C code for the watchapp
- JavaScript on the phone to let the Pebble make network calls to the server
- JQuery/mobile for form validation in the config screen on the phone
- Node.js for building the server
- Express to give the server structure and some nice helpers
- Coffeescript because I prefer it to JS
- Applescript to control PowerPoint
- Bootstrap for simple prettying of webviews
- EJS because even tho I prefer Jade, I wanted the server to be a lightweight NPM package and have fewer dependencies, but then I used...
- atom-shell to make the jumbo heavyweight (100+MB!!!) standalone app for people who aren't going to do Node package installs and command line stuff
- Katon for running the server as I was developing the package
- Grunt for building, because it had a task for grabbing atom-shell
- ditto because I gave up on fighting with Node's glob behavior to allow me to copy the atom-shell and all its space-filled filenames and symlinks
- Markdown for this file you're reading right now
If you give me a free one, I'll give it a shot.
I was a Kickstarter backer of the Pebble, so that's why I have it.