Random Aww

README.md

Description

Dashing widget to display a random cute picture from http://reddit.com/r/aww

The display of the widget is heavily based on the Image widget, however it does not prepend the src with 'assets' which allows for external images.

Settings

You can set a placeholder image in the event that reddit is down, or otherwise unresponse. This is set at the top of random_aww.rb as follows:

placeholder = '/assets/nyantocat.gif'

This can be an image in /assets/images, or a full path to a remotely hosted image.

Usage

To use this widget, copy random_aww.html, random_aww.coffee, and random_aww.scss into the /widgets/random_aww directory. Put the random_aww.rb file in your /jobs folder.

To include the widget in a dashboard, add the following snippet to the dashboard layout file:

<li data-row="1" data-col="1" data-sizex="1" data-sizey="1">
  <div data-id="aww" data-view="RandomAww"></div>
</li>

Preview

random_aww.coffee

class Dashing.RandomAww extends Dashing.Widget

  ready: ->
    # This is fired when the widget is done being rendered

  onData: (data) ->
    # Handle incoming data
    # You can access the html node of this widget with `@node`
    # Example: $(@node).fadeOut().fadeIn() will make the node flash each time data comes in.

random_aww.html

<div style="" class="image_container" data-bind-style="image"></div>

random_aww.rb

require 'net/http'
require 'json'

placeholder = '/assets/nyantocat.gif'

SCHEDULER.every '60s', first_in: 0 do |job|
  http = Net::HTTP.new('www.reddit.com')
  response = http.request(Net::HTTP::Get.new("/r/aww.json"))
  json = JSON.parse(response.body)

  if json['data']['children'].count <= 0
    send_event('aww', image: placeholder)
  else
    urls = json['data']['children'].map{|child| child['data']['url'] }

    # Ensure we're linking directly to an image, not a gallery etc.
    valid_urls = urls.select{|url| url.downcase.end_with?('png', 'gif', 'jpg', 'jpeg')}
    send_event('aww', image: "background-image:url(#{valid_urls.sample(1).first})")
  end
end

random_aww.scss

// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Sass declarations
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
$background-color:  #2d2e29;

// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// Widget-image styles
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
.widget-random-aww { 

  background-color: $background-color;
 
  .image_container {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    bottom: 0;
    left: 0;
    right: 0;
    background-size: cover;
    background-position: center;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
  }

}

Hi Chelsea! I made a few minor improvements here: https://gist.github.com/jwalton/6627849

• By using a background image, I made it preserve the aspect ratio of the image. Also, this makes it so your widget will work in different sized containers. You can have a 300x300px image, or a 600x600px image no problem.
• I made it pull from r/kittens, which are way cuter than dogs. ;)

Thanks jwalton, I've updated it a bit to better work with table cells. Using relative dimensions had some unpredictable behaviours, but kept the use of /r/aww, I'm equal opportunity with cute things.