How’s, why’s and what for’s…
This is the jump-off point for a basic, but very thorough tutorial using InqPortal. It does assume you have some familiarity with Arduino programming on some microcontrollers like Arduino’s. Other than that, any experience you have with the ESP8266, C++ or Web development will only make it easier. There are nine topics to this tutorial and it is verbose. If you are finding it overly remedial or tedious head over to the Quick Start Guide. Really… the line count added is so minimal, the reading below will take you far longer than the actual coding… and once you get it under your belt, we’re talking about minutes to fully implement a project. Try it out!
Arduino IDE Configuration for Windows
This assumes you will be starting with a Windows computer and need to load the Arduino development environment. Linux machines are similarly easy, but if you are using Linux, you’re probably already installed and wanting the Cliffs Notes. I apologize – I know Mac’s can do Arduino programming, but they are above my pay grade. The Internet tells me it’s possible. This topic also walks you through adding support for ESP8266 type boards (NodeMCU, WeMos, ESP-01, ES-07, etc). InqPortal only supports these types of microcontrollers based on the ESP8266 microprocessor. Finally, it’ll show you how to load all the libraries necessary to start your project.
Project Settings
Here we go over the important Arduino IDE project settings. This is geared toward someone new to using the Arduino IDE with ESP8266 boards.
The Bare Essentials
Here we write our first InqPortal project. We start exploring and configuring the Built-In and LAN access points. No wiring necessary.
Adding Web Content
Here we explore the usage of the InqPortal Files explorer by transferring web content to our InqPortal.
Adding Performance Metrics
Here we add some more Sketch code to push out performance metrics and discuss the output in the InqPortal Admin and how we can use it to diagnose and optimize our project.
Publishing Data
Here we start creating our own data specific to our project. We’ll simulate some random data just so we don’t have to do any wiring and debugging hardware. We’ll then publish it so our clients can use it.
Output Values and Logging
Here we will look at our published data and do some other logging and histogram duties to show the power of remote debugging on the InqPortal Admin.
Making Persisted Server Changes
Here we return to the server side to add a few lines of code to publish a couple of variables we want to be able to edit from our client side. We also discuss how InqPortal can be configured to persist certain values automatically.
Client Side Getting Started
New in Version 5 – Getting jump started on your custom client just got easy as falling off a log… about three mouse clicks!