Faceless App w/ optional Face ?

General
1

Greetings -

I need to write a faceless application that can run on a no display single board computer under Windows. This is a kind of data logger that writes to a log file with data from a wireless instrumentation network. The radio appears as a COM port on USB. The app also has to read & use a set of xml files that contain the characteristics of each sensor in the system.

BUT… depending on an entry in the config file, I would like it to be able to launch a face that would display network status, data throughput, maybe even some of the recent data.

It must run under Windows. Linux would be nice and MacOS (not faceless, here) would be fantastic frosting.

My questions:

Is this the realm for a console application?

What is a reasonable way for the core application to communicate with a GUI? IPC or something else?

2

On Windows AFAIK, you simply don’t show an interface until you need to, you can put a menu in the system tray.

3

But, doesn’t the system tray require a display to show it?

Jim

4

In the inspector for App set the window to none.
In the app.open event add the line me.autoquit = false and build your system tray here too. Remember to add an exit option to quit your app.

5

Maybe there is another option too, standalone web app. Faceless where installed, interface via http://machine:port

Remote Interface always on. Lock it with password.

6

You don’t need to open a window to have a system tray.
For a NSStatusItem, we have a class in the MBS Plugins.

7

OK, how do I deal with this system tray? This is totally new to me!

Thanks for your suggestions.

Jim