This fork of Pixlet includes an API option that can be used to manage applets and serve them in base64 format, and was developed to work with an ESP32 and RGB LED Matrix 64x32 panel using panel-led-mqtt
Pixlet is an app runtime and UX toolkit for highly-constrained displays. We use Pixlet to develop applets for Tidbyt, which has a 64x32 RGB LED matrix display:
Apps developed with Pixlet can be served in a browser, rendered as WebP or GIF animations, or pushed to a physical Tidbyt device.
- Getting started
- How it works
- In-depth tutorial
- Widget reference
- Modules reference
- Notes on the available fonts
brew install tidbyt/tidbyt/pixlet
Download the pixlet
binary from the latest release.
Alternatively you can build from source.
Pixlet applets are written in a simple, Python-like language called Starlark. Here's the venerable Hello World program:
load("render.star", "render")
def main():
return render.Root(
child = render.Text("Hello, World!")
)
Render and serve it with:
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tidbyt/pixlet/main/examples/hello_world.star | \
pixlet serve /dev/stdin
You can view the result by navigating to http://localhost:8080:
Pixlet scripts are written in a simple, Python-like language called Starlark. The scripts can retrieve data over HTTP, transform it and use a collection of Widgets to describe how the data should be presented visually.
The Pixlet CLI runs these scripts and renders the result as a WebP
or GIF animation. You can view the animation in your browser, save
it, or even push it to a Tidbyt device with pixlet push
.
This applet accepts a timezone
parameter and produces a two frame
animation displaying the current time with a blinking ':' separator
between the hour and minute components.
load("render.star", "render")
load("time.star", "time")
def main(config):
timezone = config.get("timezone") or "America/New_York"
now = time.now().in_location(timezone)
return render.Root(
delay = 500,
child = render.Box(
child = render.Animation(
children = [
render.Text(
content = now.format("3:04 PM"),
font = "6x13",
),
render.Text(
content = now.format("3 04 PM"),
font = "6x13",
),
],
),
),
)
Here's the resulting image:
Applets can get information from external data sources. For example, here is a Bitcoin price tracker:
Read the in-depth tutorial to learn how to make an applet like this.
If you have a Tidbyt, pixlet
can push apps directly to it. For example,
to show the Bitcoin tracker on your Tidbyt:
pixlet render examples/bitcoin.star
pixlet push --api-token <YOUR API TOKEN> <YOUR DEVICE ID> examples/bitcoin.webp
To get the ID and API key for a device, open the settings for the device in the Tidbyt app on your phone, and tap Get API key.
If all goes well, you should see the Bitcoin tracker appear on your Tidbyt: