How to: post data to your dashboard and widgets

When you install Smashing, it will be listening for HTTP POST requests that can be used to update the dashboard and widgets.

Authentication

Look at config.ru for a line that looks like set :auth_token, 'YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN'. You should change that value to a custom token value to be used by clients securely.

Format

Let's use the default dashboard and widgets that come installed with Smashing by default.

You can update any of the values with an HTTP POST request similar to the following.

curl -X POST -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{ "auth_token": "YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN", "value": 9999 }' http://localhost:3030/widgets/synergy

Now breaking down the command.

1. curl is the command used, you can use any other command line utility, or a GUI, or code in Shell, Python, etc
2. -X POST defines this is an HTTP POST request
3. H 'Content-Type: application/json sets the HTTP request content type header
4. -d '{ "auth_token": "YOUR_AUTH_TOKEN", "value": 9999 }' specifies the data of the request, which is a JSON document. The auth_token, as mentioned above, is the default value which you probably want to alter. The "value" matches what is sent in the jobs/sample.rb job.
5. http://localhost:3030/widgets/synergy is the URL used in the post, which contains the prefix http://localhost:3030/widgets/ followed by the widget name, which also matches the value from jobs/sample.rb job.