UNDER CONSTRUCTION

If you want to use the Smarties in a wall display application, it might be not necessary to read what follows. Indeed, it is simpler to use a Smarties library with the default client software. What follows is useful for developing new clients, developing libraries or better understand what is behind the Smarties system.

The protocol use OSC and follow a "server - clients" logic. Typically the server application is the application that control the "slaves" that are in charge of the rendering. The clients should send messages to server (only) and the server send messages to the clients. All messages "address argument must start with the following prefix stying: "/Smarties/". We omit this prefix in what follows, thus when we talk about a message foo, the address argument should be "/Smarties/foo". You should never forget that the clients are totally agnostic to the semantic of the wall display application.

The default port for communication from the clients to the server is 57110, the default port for communication from the server to the clients is 57120. Other ports can be use of course, in particular if the server want to manage different type of Smarties client.

Hello Protocol

When a client starts it should send a NewConnection message to the server. Then, if the server runs, the server must respond with a HelloMessage, and, then the protocol must continue as explained in the next paragraph. If there is no server running a client must continue to send messages (of any type) to the servers in response to user interaction (e.g., touch messages).

Indeed, whenever the server receives a message from a client for the first time (the server never receive a msg with the ip address of that client), the server must send a HelloMessage to this client. Then, the client should reset itself and reply by GetHelloMessage, and then the server should send a series of messages to provide information to the client.

The above logic allows for "any time connection". Indeed, a client can be asked to re-connect to a (new) server at any time by receiving a HelloMessage message. Thus, it is (a priori) never necessary to restart a client. In the other hand, the NewConnection message allows for immediate connection if a server run.

Initialisation Messages

After the server and a client connect with the above protocol, the server should send the widgets, the smarties and some defaults to the client. This is done with several messages.

#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_TEXTVIEW      0
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_BUTTON        1
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_TOGGLE_BUTTON 2
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_TEXT_BUTTON   3
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_CHECKBOX      4
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_SLIDER        5
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_SPINNER       6
// NOT YET IMPLEMENTED ....
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_RADIOGROUP     7
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_POPUPMENU      8
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_POPUPMENUCB    9
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_TYPE_POPUPMENURG    10

#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_STATE_ENABLED   0
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_STATE_DISABLED  1
#define SMARTIES_WIDGET_STATE_HIDDEN    2

#define SMARTIE_TYPE_NONE      -1 
#define SMARTIE_TYPE_CROSS      0
#define SMARTIE_TYPE_ARROW      1
#define SMARTIE_TYPE_POINT      2
#define SMARTIE_TYPE_SELECT     3
#define SMARTIE_TYPE_TEXT       4
#define SMARTIE_TYPE_CIRCLE     5
#define SMARTIE_TYPE_MOVE       6
// etc ...

Creation and management of a Smartie

Only the server can create a smartie, the clients can only ask the server to create a new smartie. Formally, a client asks the server for a new smartie with the AskNewSmartie message (see below), and then the server respond (or not) by sending NewSmartie messages (see above) to the clients (with, for instance, a lock status of 0 for the asker and of 1 for the other clients).

After a client ask for an action the server should update the state of the smartie on the other clients. This is done with the following messages.

Touch messages

One finger touch (gesture, not tape beside smartie selection) is reserved to manipulate the smarties (that are a priori the application cursors) with the [Start,End]MoveSmartie client to server messages. The protocol provide two protocols for multi-finger touch. The "raw" protocol that roughly forward low level multi-touch events and the Smarties touch protocol. The protocol should be choosen by the server at connection time with the Defaults message (see above).

The raw multi-touch protocol [Not yet implemented]

The Smarties multi-touch protocol

Smarties proposes simple (but powerfull) hight level multi-touch events.

Widgets Messages

Some messages are sent from the clients to the server when the user use the widgets. The server can also send properties of the widgets. The idea is that a widget visibility/state/value/action might depend on the selected smartie.

Client to server widget messages

Server to client widget messages

Soft keyboard

The server can ask a client ....