Christmas Light Show Voting Website

A real-time voting website that lets visitors choose which Christmas song plays next at a synchronized light show. Visitors cast votes from their phones, and the results are broadcast to fppscheduler via MQTT to influence the show's playlist.

Architecture Overview

Visitor Browser
      │
      │  HTTP / WebSocket (Hapi NES)
      ▼
┌─────────────┐       MQTT        ┌──────────────────┐
│  Node.js    │ ◄────────────────►│  MQTT Broker     │
│  Hapi Server│                   └──────────────────┘
│  :7654      │                          │
└─────────────┘                          │ /christmas/...
      ▲                           ┌──────┴───────┐
      │  Built static files       │ fppscheduler │
┌─────────────┐                   │  (on FPP box)│
│  Vue 3 +    │                   └──────────────┘
│  Vite       │
│  Frontend   │
└─────────────┘

• Frontend (frontend/) — Vue 3 SPA built with Vite. Served as static files by a web server (e.g., nginx). Communicates with the backend via REST and a persistent WebSocket subscription.
• Backend (server/) — Hapi.js server. Manages vote state, pushes real-time updates to all connected clients via Hapi NES WebSockets, and relays votes/status to/from an MQTT broker.
• MQTT Broker — External broker (e.g., Mosquitto). The server subscribes to status topics published by FPP and fppscheduler, and publishes vote data back.

Prerequisites

• Node.js v24 (use nvm use 24)
• An MQTT broker reachable from the server
• fppscheduler running on the FPP box with MQTT prefix /christmas

---

Backend Setup (server/)

1. Configuration file

Copy the example config and fill in your MQTT broker details:

cp server/greglights_config_example.json server/greglights_config.json

Edit server/greglights_config.json:

{
  "username": "your-mqtt-username",
  "password": "your-mqtt-password",
  "port": 1883,
  "host": "192.168.1.x",
  "send_enabled": true
}

Field	Description
host	Hostname or IP of the MQTT broker
port	MQTT broker port (1883 for plain, 8883 for TLS)
username	MQTT username
password	MQTT password
send_enabled	Set false to disable publishing votes/queues to MQTT (dry-run mode)

Note: greglights_config.json contains credentials — do not commit it. It is listed in .gitignore.

2. Install dependencies

cd server
nvm use 24
npm install

3. Run for development

node index.js

The server listens on port 7654 by default. Override with the port environment variable:

port=8000 node index.js

4. Run for production (Docker)

cd server
docker-compose build
docker-compose up -d

The docker-compose.yml binds the server to 127.0.0.1:7654 on the host. Front it with nginx or another reverse proxy for HTTPS.

API Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
GET	/queue	Returns the full data model (songs, names, snowmen, votes remaining for session)
GET	/model	Returns the full data model (no session info)
GET/POST	/vote/{id}	Cast a vote for song with the given ID
DELETE	/vote/{id}	Remove a previously cast vote for song {id}
GET/POST	/votesnowman/{id}	Vote for a snowman display
GET	/status	Returns server health status
GET	/faq	Returns the shared display FAQ as rendered HTML
GET	/ws	WebSocket endpoint (Hapi NES) — subscribe to /publicData for real-time model pushes

GET /faq

This server owns the FAQ text for both vote-now.org and thehormanns.net, so the two sites can never drift apart. The questions and answers live in server/data/faqs.js; anything that can change — season dates, the song count, the address, charity names — is written there as a {{token}} and filled in from server/data/facts.js on each request. Answers come back as ready-to-show HTML.

Query	Description
audience	web (thehormanns.net) or app (the vote-now info page). Omit for everything.
site	Base URL for links into thehormanns.net. Defaults to https://thehormanns.net; thehormanns.net passes an empty string so its own links stay relative.

curl 'http://localhost:7654/faq?audience=app'

thehormanns.net calls this at build time (which is what feeds its FAQPage structured data) and again in the browser, so edits here reach that site without a redeploy.

Sessions are tracked server-side via a cookie (Hapi Yar). Each session gets 8 votes, replenished by 1 every 2 minutes.

MQTT Topics

The server subscribes to these topics (all under the /christmas/ prefix):

Topic	Purpose
/christmas/nameQueue	Name queue status from fppscheduler
/christmas/scheduler/status	Scheduler run state (on/off, short list mode, debug)
/christmas/scheduler/name_estimate	Estimated time until next name is generated
/christmas/scheduler/all_playlist	Full song list with durations
/christmas/snowman/status	Available snowman displays and current selection
/christmas/falcon/player/fpp2/playlist_details	Currently playing song from FPP
/christmas/clock	Show clock tick
/christmas/todayPower	Power consumption stats
/christmas/vote/stats	Aggregated vote statistics
/christmas/vote/setShortList	Toggle short-list mode
/christmas/vote/debug	Toggle debug mode

The server publishes to:

Topic	Purpose
/christmas/vote/add	Notify fppscheduler of a new song vote
/christmas/snowmanvote/add	Notify fppscheduler of a snowman vote
/christmas/vote/songQueue	Broadcast current song queue (every 2 s)
/christmas/vote/snowmenQueue	Broadcast current snowman queue (every 2 s)
/christmas/personsName	Submit a visitor's name to the name display queue
/christmas/scheduler/requestSongs	Request full playlist from fppscheduler on startup

Known Limitations

• The MQTT prefix /christmas is hard-coded in lib/mymqtt.js.
• The root redirect URL (https://vote-now.org) is hard-coded in routes/index.js but only used for a redirect on a 404.
• TLS MQTT is supported in the code but currently commented out; plain mqtt:// is active.

---

Frontend Setup (frontend/)

1. Environment files

Vite uses .env files to inject the backend URL at build time. Two files are used:

.env.local — used automatically during npm run dev (never committed):

VITE_API_BASE_URL=http://localhost:7654
VITE_WS_URL=ws://localhost:7654/ws

.env.production — used automatically during npm run build:

VITE_API_BASE_URL=https://your-domain.com/api
VITE_WS_URL=wss://your-domain.com/ws

Update .env.production to match your production server's domain before building.

Variable	Description
VITE_API_BASE_URL	Base URL for REST API calls to the Hapi server
VITE_WS_URL	WebSocket URL for real-time Hapi NES subscription

2. Install dependencies

cd frontend
nvm use 24
npm install

3. Development server

npm run dev

Starts Vite dev server at http://localhost:8080 (bound to all interfaces via host: true in vite.config.js). API requests proxy to the backend via the URL in .env.local.

4. Production build

npm run build

Outputs static files to frontend/dist/. Copy these to your web server's document root.

5. Other scripts

Command	Description
npm run preview	Preview the production build locally
npm run lint	Lint and auto-fix with ESLint
npm run format	Format source files with Prettier
npm run test	Run unit tests with Vitest

Frontend Pages

Route	Component	Description
/	HomeView	Song voting — list of available songs with vote buttons
/names	NameQueue	Submit your name to appear on the light show name display
/info	InfoView	Show information and FAQ
/stats	StatsView	Voting and power usage statistics
/other	OtherDisplaysView	Other display elements (snowmen voting, etc.)

Key Dependencies

Package	Purpose
Vue 3 + Vite	UI framework and build tool
Pinia	State management
Vue Router 4	Client-side routing
@hapi/nes	WebSocket client for real-time server pushes
Axios	HTTP REST client
Bootstrap 5	UI styling

---

Development Workflow

Run backend and frontend in separate terminals:

# Terminal 1 — backend
cd server && nvm use 24 && node index.js

# Terminal 2 — frontend
cd frontend && nvm use 24 && npm run dev

The frontend dev server at http://localhost:8080 connects to the backend at http://localhost:7654 as configured in frontend/.env.local.

Production Deployment

1. Build the frontend: cd frontend && npm run build
2. Copy frontend/dist/ files to your web server document root.
3. Configure your web server to reverse-proxy /api/ and /ws to http://127.0.0.1:7654.
4. Start the backend via Docker: cd server && docker-compose up -d.