ProdDash/README.md

ProdDash

A modular production dashboard for Waters Church. Any browser on the building network opens one page and composes its own dashboard out of modules — independent tiles that each show one aspect of a live service. Ships with the live ProdCom transcript, the ProPresenter Now / Next display, and a booth clock; new modules drop into modules/ without touching the shell (see docs/MODULE-GUIDE.md).

How it works

server.js (zero dependencies, just Node.js) does four things:

1. Serves the dashboard shell (public/) and the admin page (/admin).
2. Discovers modules in modules/ and serves each one's client at /modules/<id>/.
3. Mounts each enabled module's server routes under /api/modules/<id>/ — that's where module servers follow ProdCom, poll ProPresenter, and stream live updates over SSE — one upstream connection per module, however many dashboards are open — so browsers never talk to production gear directly (no CORS, and API keys never leave the server).
4. Stores server-wide module config and named layouts in a per-machine data directory outside the app folder, so updating ProdDash never loses them.

Each browser arranges its own tiles (add, drag, resize, remove, per-tile settings); the layout autosaves to that browser's localStorage. Named layouts can also be saved to the server and loaded from any other browser. Every module survives its upstream disappearing: tiles show a red status dot and a clear degraded state, then recover on their own.

Run it

macOS — the app

Open the disk image and drag ProdDash to Applications. That's the whole installation: the app carries the dashboard and its own Node runtime, so nothing else has to be installed and nothing can be missing. It lives in the menu bar, starts and stops the server, can open at login, and holds the permissions the modules need — the microphone the LTC listener reads, and local network access for ProdCom and ProPresenter. macOS grants those to the app that owns the process, so a server started any other way (over SSH, from a launchd job) simply doesn't have them, and an LTC input goes silently to zeroes.

Build the disk image from a checkout with launcher/macos/build.sh:

cd launcher/macos && ./build.sh --dmg

Anywhere else, or from a checkout

Requires Node.js 18 or newer.

node server.js

Or double-click Start ProdDash.command (macOS) / start.bat (Windows).

Then open the URL it prints — http://localhost:24500 on this machine, or the http://<this-machine's-IP>:24500 address from any other device on the network.

Configure

Server-wide module settings (ProdCom URL, ProPresenter host, API keys, enable/disable) live in the admin page — open Admin from the dashboard's top bar, or go to /admin. Saving re-initialises the module immediately; open tiles reconnect on their own.

Where settings are kept

Everything you enter in the admin page (module connection settings, API keys, enabled/disabled flags) and every named layout is written to a data directory on the machine running the server — not into the app folder:

OS	Data directory
Windows	%APPDATA%\ProdDash (e.g. C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\ProdDash)
macOS	~/Library/Application Support/ProdDash
Linux	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/proddash, else ~/.config/proddash

Because it lives outside the checkout, you can git pull, re-clone, or reset the app folder from main and start the new version with everything still configured. The admin page shows the exact path in use, and the server prints it at startup (Settings : …).

The directory holds modules.json (module config), layouts/ (named layouts) and modules/ (modules installed from the admin page), all written by the app itself. Installed from the macOS app, it also holds app/ — the copy of ProdDash that actually runs, laid down from inside the app bundle on first launch and updated in place from then on (nothing may write inside a signed .app, and ProdDash updates itself). It may also hold a proddash.json with this machine's shell settings — the same keys as the checked-in config/proddash.json, which supplies the defaults:

Key	Meaning
port	Port ProdDash serves on (default 24500). The macOS launcher writes this one, so the port it is set to holds however ProdDash is started.
adminPasscode	If set, the admin page asks for this shared passcode. Leave "" for none — it's a plain-HTTP LAN tool.
forge	Where updates and module installs are fetched from. Absent or "github" uses GitHub; a Gitea or Forgejo base URL such as "http://10.3.8.90:3000" uses a server of your own. Set it per machine in the data directory, alongside repo.
theme	The dashboard palette: booth (default), harbor, graphite, ember or daylight. The admin page's Theme section writes this one — see Themes.

Updating from your own git server. ProdDash fetches one tar.gz of the branch — nothing else — so any Gitea or Forgejo works. Point forge at its base URL and repo at the owner/repo there:

{ "forge": "http://10.3.8.90:3000", "repo": "michael/ProdDash", "branch": "main" }

Gitea spells an archive URL differently from GitHub, which is the only thing that changes; the tarball itself is identical, commit hash included, so update detection and module installs behave exactly as before. Make the repository readable without signing in, or ProdDash cannot fetch it.

Environment variables override both files: PORT, PRODDASH_PASSCODE, and PRODDASH_FORGE, and PRODDASH_DATA_DIR to put the data directory somewhere else (a relative path is taken from the app folder; PRODDASH_DATA_DIR=config restores the old in-repo location). If the default directory can't be created, the server says so and falls back to the app's config/ folder.

Upgrading from an earlier version: the first start copies an existing config/modules.json and config/layouts/ from the app folder into the data directory, so nothing has to be re-entered. The old files are left in place and ignored from then on.

Themes

The whole dashboard — every tile, on every browser — draws with one palette, chosen in the admin page's Theme section and switched live: pick a swatch and open dashboards change without a reload. Five presets ship: Booth (the default dark, mint accent), Harbor (deep navy, cyan), Graphite (neutral charcoal, electric blue), Ember (warm broadcast black, orange) and Daylight, a light palette for a front-of-house desk in daytime. Each keeps the status colours apart — the accent is never near the danger red or the warning amber — and muted text readable in a dark booth. The choice is stored as theme in the data directory's proddash.json (table above), so it holds across restarts and updates; a browser remembers the last theme it saw and applies it before the server answers, so nothing flashes. Modules style with the shell's colour variables, which is why they follow; a colour set on a tile itself (a PCO Plan header colour, say) is deliberately kept.

Installing modules and updating

Everything below happens in the admin page; ProdDash talks to its GitHub repository (michaelmcgary2008/ProdDash, branch main — change with repo / branch in proddash.json or the PRODDASH_REPO variable, owner/repo#branch). It downloads one small archive of the branch, at most every few minutes, only while the admin page is open or for the update check below. Nothing is installed without someone clicking.

• Available modules lists modules in the repo that aren't installed here. Install downloads the module into the data directory's modules/ and starts it right away — nothing is written into the app folder, and no restart is needed. Modules that ship with your copy of ProdDash are "bundled"; ones you installed are "installed"; if both exist, the newer version runs.
• Uninstall on a module card removes an installed module's files. For a bundled module (its folder belongs to the app) it hides the module from every dashboard instead; it reappears under Available modules and can be brought back without downloading. Settings are kept either way.
• Module updates: when the repo has a newer version of an installed module, its card shows Update to vX.
• Version requirements: every module declares the ProdDash versions it needs ("proddash": ">=1.1.0" in its manifest). A module that needs a newer shell is listed but not loaded, and cannot be installed until ProdDash is updated.
• ProdDash updates: the admin page checks the repo shortly after start and every six hours, and shows a banner when main has a newer version (or new commits). Update now brings the app folder up to date and restarts the server; dashboards reconnect on their own. A git checkout is updated with git pull --ff-only (only when it is on the repo branch with no local changes — otherwise the banner says why and you update with git). A plain folder (no .git) has the repo archive unpacked over it; files removed upstream are left behind but harmless. Settings and layouts are never touched. What changed opens the commit comparison on GitHub.
• Restarting: after an update the server exits with code 75 and starts its own replacement, which waits for the port to free up. If you supervise ProdDash with your own launcher, set PRODDASH_LAUNCHER=1 so the server just exits and your launcher restarts it on exit code 75. PRODDASH_NO_REMOTE_CHECK=1 turns off the periodic check (the admin page still checks when opened).

Using the dashboard

• ＋ — add any enabled module; multiple tiles of the same module are fine (e.g. two transcripts filtered to different channels).
• Drag a tile by its title bar to move it; drag either bottom corner to resize; ✕ removes it. Hover a tile and a small pill appears on its bottom edge — drag it to change just the height. If another tile sits directly below, the pill moves the shared edge instead, trading rows between the two so the column keeps its total height. Tiles sit flush — when two share a vertical edge, hover the seam and the same kind of pill appears; drag it to trade width (macOS split-view style).
• Fullscreen (the ⛶ button) is a viewing mode: the menu bar hides (its green lip at the top-left brings it back, minus the Admin button), the occupied columns stretch to the full width, and every column runs to the bottom of the screen — the last tile in each column is stretched to end there. A short tile like the clock is never stretched into a ribbon: under another tile it slides to the bottom edge and the tile above grows into the gap; alone in its columns it stays as it is. Nothing is saved — the layout reverts when you leave fullscreen. A layout deeper than the screen keeps its normal row height and scrolls.
• A tile's actions (menus, text size, clear…) live in its title bar; the small notch on the bar's bottom edge hides/shows the whole bar for a clean wall-display look. The menu bar's handle is the ProdDash name itself, wrapped in a translucent green pill at the left — click it to hide the bar; the slim green lip it leaves at the top-left edge brings the bar back. It stays at the left so it never sits on top of a tile's own tab.
• The gear on a tile holds per-tile settings (filters, text size, display options) — these belong to this browser's layout, not the server.
• The grid icon — save the current arrangement to the server under a name, load a named layout (it becomes a local copy — browsers are never linked), or reset this browser's dashboard.
• Every tile has a status dot: green = live, amber = connecting, red = upstream unreachable (hover it for details). Tiles reconnect automatically.

Included modules

• ProdCom — live transcript stream with in-place updates of in-progress speech, channel colors, per-tile channel visibility toggles and group presets, timestamps, text size, a top-down / bottom-up direction toggle and jump-to-latest in the title bar. Admin config: ProdCom server (host : port), API key. Tile settings: channel icons, direction and timestamps.

• ProPresenter — what's live and what's next, with slide progress, driven by the shared propresenter-core client (ProPresenter 7/20). Admin config: ProPresenter endpoint (host : port), password.

• Timers — live ProPresenter timers (countdown, countdown-to-time, elapsed) and LTC timecode as auto-sized cards. The ＋ picker lists every discovered timer (and the LTC card) as its own tile, or add "All timers" and pick a selection via the tile's "Timers ▾" menu; overruns are unmistakably red. Read-only — no start/stop controls. Admin config is in three groups: ProPresenter (endpoint host : port, API password), LTC Timecode (the listener switch, and — when it's on — the audio device and channel), and Display (Timer font — Default or Monospace, which keeps the digits from shifting as the numbers change).

  ProPresenter exposes no timecode over any API, so LTC is decoded from the audio signal, behind the admin LTC listener switch (off ⇒ no LTC tile in the picker at all). On, the module captures the selected audio input device/channel on the ProdDash machine — a native ltc-capture helper, compiled on first use — and decodes the SMPTE frames in-process: running/stopped/no-signal, the timecode counting frame-accurately in real time, and the frame rate (incl. 29.97 drop-frame). macOS note: the ProdDash server needs microphone permission — launch it from a logged-in session (Start ProdDash.command) and approve the one-time prompt; a server started over SSH or by bare launchd silently captures zeros. (Engine self-test: node modules/propresenter-timers/ltc.selftest.js.)

• PCO Plan — the order of service from Planning Center Services: every plan item with its scheduled start time, length, type, song key, description and item notes. When the ProPresenter module is running it follows that module's live item, highlights the matching plan item, dims what's done and shows the elapsed vs planned runtime and how far ahead/behind the service is. Admin config is the connection: Planning Center credentials (Personal Access Token app ID + secret, or an OAuth token), the service type (a list grouped by your Planning Center folders) and an optional pinned plan. Everything about the display is per tile (gear menu): the top-bar text (placeholders such as {series} • {part} | {serviceType} • {date}), colors, text size, and a show/hide checklist for every detail.

• Clock — a big booth clock; also the smallest possible module and the reference for module authors.

To develop modules against mocks instead of real gear: node tools/prodcom-mock.js (ProdCom on 127.0.0.1:24480), node band-lineup-display/tmp/pp-mock.js 1599 (ProPresenter slides on 127.0.0.1:1599), node tools/pp-timers-mock.js 1600 (ProPresenter timers + timecode on 127.0.0.1:1600) and node tools/pco-mock.js (Planning Center Services on 127.0.0.1:24700 — run ProdDash with PCO_PLAN_API_BASE=http://127.0.0.1:24700). See the testing section of the module guide.

Install as a desktop web app

Open the page in a browser first, then:

• macOS — Safari: File → Add to Dock…
• macOS/Windows — Chrome: click the install icon in the address bar, or ⋮ menu → Cast, save and share → Install page as app…
• Windows — Edge: ⋯ menu → Apps → Install this site as an app

Note: Chrome only offers the one-click PWA install on http://localhost (a "secure context"). When opening from another machine over plain HTTP, use Edge's "Install this site as an app" or Chrome's ⋮ → Cast, save and share → "Create shortcut…" (check "Open as window") — same result: a dock/taskbar app in its own window.

Repository layout

ProdDash/
├── server.js                  shell server: static files, module discovery/mounting,
│                              admin + layouts APIs
├── public/                    dashboard shell client (index.html, shell.js, style.css)
│   └── admin/                 admin page client
├── modules/                   installed modules, one folder each
│   ├── clock/
│   ├── prodcom-transcript/
│   └── propresenter-now-next/ (carries its own copy of propresenter-core)
├── package.json               name + version (what the update check compares)
├── config/                    proddash.json defaults (runtime state lives in the
│                              per-machine data directory — see "Configure")
├── docs/MODULE-GUIDE.md       how to build and install a module
├── tools/prodcom-mock.js      mock ProdCom API for development
├── prodcom-listener/          reference fork — read-only, not served
└── band-lineup-display/       reference fork — read-only, not served

The two reference folders are snapshots of the apps ProdDash grew out of; they are not wired into anything (but band-lineup-display/tmp/pp-mock.js is handy for testing).