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LightAct WebUIs allow you to create simple and intuitive user interfaces (UIs). They are web applications which means you can access them through a browser and are independent of LightAct program itself. As such they are available only on LightAct Pro servers and are not included in LightAct main installation package.

What are WebUIs?

WebUIs are web applications. This means they are accessible from any browser on any device as long as it is on the same network as LightAct Pro server. If you set up your network properly you can also access it from outside your local network. So, if your device is on the same network as LightAct Pro server and you type in the IP address of the server in the browser on your device, you will see LightAct WebUI login page. Alternatively, if you open a browser on a Pro server and type in /laweb/ you should see the same.

Default log in credentials are:

  • username: LightAct
  • password: YouaresoLA

Please remember to change your credentials once you are logged in.

After logging in you’ll see a list of all WebUIs. Our servers come with a few sample ones so you can get a better feel for what is possible.

If you select one of the preinstalled WebUIs you should see a webpage with various buttons, sliders, color pickers and textboxes. These widgets allow you to interact with LightAct .

Types of communication

There are 3 ways of communication between a WebUI and LightAct : commands, variables and scheduled readers.


Some interactive widgets, for example, buttons are used to pass simple commands to LightAct. These commands are stored in a Command stack and every time LightAct reads from it, it deletes the entry it just read. When a command is successfully written in the command stack you’ll see a notification at the top.


Other interactive widgets, for example, sliders, spinners and color pickers, are used to read and set variables stored in the database. Whenever you make a change to a widget, for example, when you move a slider a bit, the new value is stored in the database. When the page is refreshed that variable is read from the database. LightAct also includes a Set variable node, which means that with WebUIs you can also watch the values of WebUI variables.

Scheduled readers

A scheduled reader is a non-interactive widget that can be used to, for example, read contents of a file every minute and pass them on to LightAct . This can be useful if you want LightAct to interact with various online or offline sources of information such as weather report, traffic report, twitter feeds etc.

How does it all work?

LightAct Pro servers are using Wamp server for WebUIs. All the information about WebUIs is stored in a MySQL database which allows a bi-directional communication between a WebUI and LightAct . This allows you to pass commands from WebUI to LightAct and also to set and read Lightact variables.

Wamp server setup

  • WebUIs virtual host: /laweb/
  • Wamp setup virtual host: /localhost/
  • LightAct MySQL database name: lightact
  • phpMyAdmin credentials: root, blank. Please remember to change the password once you are logged in.