Specifications

Initial tests with the Ethernut showed that the web server functions that it provided were
very useful. Commands could easily be passed to the web server through CGI scripts
and the interface was easily developed via HTML.
Web server
Web page
Web browser
Windows file
system
CGI functions
The Ethernut
The PC
Figure 28 A web page as the GUI
Figure 28 demonstrates the idea was that the web page would be stored on the ROM on
the Ethernut and the user could pass function to the player from a web browser, located
on a computer on the network. The Ethernut would then communicate with Windows to
get the requested file information (for example, the directories and MP3’s contained in
it) and this would modify the web page and be displayed on the user’s web browser. It
sounded good solution but running the web server from the Ethernut used up most of its
resources. The web interface still seemed possible though, because the user had to use
the GUI from a computer, it was possible to run a web server on one of the computers
on the network.
After investigating possible web servers for Windows (IIS and Apache), it would be
possible to implement the web page by storing the web page on the computer and using
the proxy function of the web server to pass required request to the Ethernut though the
web server. Though this was technically possible, it was decided that this should not be
developed because configuring the web servers was too complicated and an important
quality of the product is for it to be user friendly to install and operate.
5.3.9.3 A stand alone program as the GUI
The development then switched to developing an interface with Visual C++. Initially,
consideration was given to having this program communicate with the Ethernut, which
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