WebUI is compiled with the "gulp" packager program (https://gulpjs.com/docs/en/getting-started/quick-start) that runs on top of nodejs.
Complete process for building using CMD (run as administrator) on Windows 11:
You may need to change Windows security settings temporarily using Powershell (run as admin)
Get-ExecutionPolicy -List
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope Process
Press 'y'
Install gulp
npm install --global gulp-cli
Go to the folder you want:
cd C:\Users\your\folder
Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/MitchBradley/ESP3D-WEBUI.git
Go to the root
cd ESP3D-WEBUI
Update the line in package.json from 0.0.1 to:
"gulp-filesize": "^0.0.6",
Install dependencies
npm install
Get submodule updates
git submodule update --init
Build the index.html.gz
gulp package --lang en
Revert the security settings in Powershell
Set-ExecutionPolicy Restricted -Scope Process
Get-ExecutionPolicy -List
That will create an "index.html.gz" file in the top directory, and an non-compressed version in "dist/index.html".
If you omit --lang en, it will create a file with support for many different languages,
but the file will probably be too large to fit on an ESP32's local flash filesystem.
A single alternative language might fit. For example, you could add German support
with gulp package --lang de
You can upload index.html.gz to a FluidNC ESP32 machine and run it from there by browsing to the FluidNC IP address. That is the normal way of using WebUI.
If you're testing on a physical FluidNC machine and you break the page, you can delete the old index.html.gz file in the terminal serial monitor using
$Localfs/Delete=index.html.gz
Refreshing the page will give a default page that allows you to upload a new file
Alternatively, for a quicker test of a new build, you can avoid the upload step by starting a proxy server with:
$ python fluidnc-web-sim.py
Then browse to "localhost:8080" instead of directly to the FluidNC IP address.
The proxy serves the "dist/index.html" file directly for the initial load of WebUI, bypassing the FluidNC system for the index file. The proxy forwards all other communication over to the FluidNC machine.
By default, the proxy tries to find the FluidNC machine by using MDNS to "fluidnc.local". If that does not work, you can supply the FluidNC IP address on the command line, as with:
$ python fluidnc-web-sim.py 192.168.1.25