Vesta

Vesta is a Vestaboard client library for Python. It provides API clients and character encoding utilities.

Installation

Vesta requires Python 3.8 or later. It can be installed via PyPI:

$ python -m pip install vesta

Its only runtime dependency is the HTTPX library, which will be installed automatically.

Usage

API Clients

Read / Write API

ReadWriteClient provides a client interface for interacting with a Vestaboard using the Read / Write API.

Note that Vestaboard owners must first obtain their Read / Write API key by enabling the Vestaboard's Read / Write API via the Settings section of the mobile app or from the Developer section of the web app.

import vesta
rw_client = vesta.ReadWriteClient("read_write_key")

# Once enabled, you can write and read messages:
message = vesta.encode_text("{67} Hello, World {68}")
assert rw_client.write_message(message)
assert rw_client.read_message() == message

Subscription API

SubscriptionClient provides a client interface for interacting with multiple Vestaboards using the Subscription API.

Note that an API secret and key is required to get subscriptions or send messages. These credentials can be created from the Developer section of the web app.

Messages can be posted as either text strings or two-dimensional arrays of character codes representing the exact positions of characters on the board.

If text is specified, the lines will be centered horizontally and vertically. Character codes will be inferred for alphanumeric and punctuation characters, or they can be explicitly specified using curly braces containing the character code (such as {5} or {65}).

import vesta
subscription_client = vesta.SubscriptionClient("api_key", "api_secret")

# List subscriptions and send them messages:
subscriptions = subscription_client.get_subscriptions()
for subscription in subscriptions:
    subscription_client.send_message(subscription["id"], "{67} Hello, World {68}")

Local API

LocalClient provides a client interface for interacting with a Vestaboard over the local network using Vestaboard's Local API.

Note that Vestaboard owners must first request a Local API enablement token in order to use the Local API.

import vesta
local_client = vesta.LocalClient()

# The Vestaboard's Local API must be enabled to get its Local API key. After
# you've done this once, you can save the key somewhere safe and pass it
# directly to LocalClient() for future client initializations.
local_api_key = local_client.enable(ENABLEMENT_TOKEN)
# e.g. local_client = LocalClient(local_api_key)
assert local_client.enabled

# Once enabled, you can write and read messages:
message = vesta.encode_text("{67} Hello, World {68}")
assert local_client.write_message(message)
assert local_client.read_message() == message

VBML API

VBMLClient provides a client interface for Vestaboard's VBML (Vestaboard Markup Language) API.

import vesta

component = Component(
    "Vestaboard Markup Language",
    justify="center",
    align="center",
    width=22,
    height=6,
)

vbml_client = vesta.VBMLClient()
vesta.pprint(vbml_client.compose([component]))

Platform Client

Client provides a client interface for interacting with the deprecated Vestaboard Platform API.

This is the original Vestaboard Platform API. It is deprecated and has been superseded by the other APIs listed above. In particular, Vestaboard encourages users of the Platform API to switch to the Subscription API, which offers nearly identical functionality.

Character Encoding

All Vestaboard characters (letters, numbers, symbols, and colors) are encoded as integer character codes. Vesta includes some useful routines for working with these character codes.

encode() encodes a string as a list of character codes. In addition to printable characters, the string can contain character code sequences inside curly braces, such as {5} or {65}.

>>> vesta.encode("{67} Hello, World {68}")
[67, 0, 8, 5, 12, 12, 15, 55, 0, 23, 15, 18, 12, 4, 0, 68]

encode_row() encodes a string as a row of character codes. It builds on encode() by providing alignment control.

>>> vesta.encode_row("{67} Hello, World {68}", align="center")
[0, 0, 0, 67, 0, 8, 5, 12, 12, 15, 55, 0, 23, 15, 18, 12, 4, 0, 68, 0, 0, 0]

encode_text() encodes a string of text into rows of character codes, further building on encode() and encode_row() with the addition of alignment, margin control, and line breaks.

>>> encode_text("multiple\nlines\nof\ntext", align="center", valign="middle")
[
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 13, 21, 12, 20, 9, 16, 12, 5, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 12, 9, 14, 5, 19, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 15, 6, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 20, 5, 24, 20, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
    [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],
]

Lastly, pprint() can be used to pretty-print encoded characters to the console, which can be useful during development.

>>> vesta.pprint([0, 0, 0, 67, 0, 8, 5, 12, 12, 15, 55, 0, 23, 15, 18, 12, 4, 0, 68, 0, 0, 0])
| | | |◼︎| |H|E|L|L|O|,| |W|O|R|L|D| |◼︎| | | |

Examples

• Dad Jokes
• Olympic Medal Standings

License

This project is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.