Seeding a Dashing list from an External JSON file - ruby

Question

I'm new to Dashing (and relatively new to Ruby) so I apologize in advance if this is a dumb question. Basically I'm trying to get Dashing to read a json file that I update every 10 seconds. But I can't seem to get my job to read the file or post it out to my List widget.
Here's my job code:
require 'rubygems'
require 'json'
require 'pp'
name_list = Hash.new(0)
SCHEDULER.every '10s' do
json = File.read('list.json')
response = JSON.parse(json)
name_list[people] = {label: response.keys, value: response.keys[]}
send_event('whosHere', { items: response.values })
end
and my JSON:
{
"Mike": "Here",
"Jon": "Out",
}
And in case you need it my dashboard code:
<% content_for(:title) { "My super sweet dashboard" } %>
<div class="gridster">
<ul>
<li data-row="1" data-col="1" data-sizex="1" data-sizey="1">
<div data-id="whosHere" data-view="List" data-title="Who's Home" style="background-color:#96bf48;"></div>
</li>
</ul>
</div>

Answer 1

I see two issues:
1) You're sending the wrong object:
response = JSON.parse(json)
name_list[people] = {label: response.keys, value: response.keys[]}
send_event('whosHere', { items: response.values })
name_list[people] is your assumed result from processing your JSON, but you're sending response.values instead.
response is your parsed-JSON object returned. You must iterate over response to build an array of JSON objects to send to your List:
# new empty array of persons each time job is run
persons = []
# since your JSON file is single JSON object, using names for keys
person_names = response.keys
# for each name, do this
person_names.each do |name|
# use the 'name' key to get the value (their status)
person_status = response[name]
# create new Hash/JSON object for each person
# use "label" and "value" keys for Dashing List widget
person = Hash.new("label",name,"value",person_status)
# add this new person object to your persons array
persons.push(person)
end
Updated Job, which sends the persons array to Dashing instead:
require 'rubygems'
require 'json'
require 'pp'
name_list = Hash.new(0)
SCHEDULER.every '10s' do
json = File.read('list.json')
response = JSON.parse(json)
persons = []
person_names = response.keys
person_names.each do |name|
person_status = response[name]
person = Hash.new("label", name, "value", person_status)
persons.push(person)
end
send_event('whosHere', { items: persons })
end
2) Your JSON isn't formatted properly. Dashing's List widget is listening for an array of objects with "label" and "value" keys. Each person would be an individual JSON object, the person's name would be your "label" value, and their status would be their "value" value.
Here is the list-item HTML from the List widget:
<li data-foreach-item="items">
<span class="label" data-bind="item.label"></span>
<span class="value" data-bind="item.value"></span>
</li>
Each list item will display a single JSON object:
{
"label":"Mike",
"value":"Here"
}
So to display Mike and Jon's statuses in your list, you will need an array containing two JSON objects:
[
{
"label": "Mike",
"value": "Here"
},
{
"label": "Jon",
"value": "Out"
}
]
This array will be the "value" for your "items" key in your data object being sent to your List widget:
{
"items": [
{
"label": "Mike",
"value": "Here"
},
{
"label": "Jon",
"value": "Out"
}
]
}