help me create simple web server

Using Arduino Programming Questions
#1

Hello.

I’m trying to to control a car with 2 motors (left motor and right motor) using WiFi Module by running a http web server

I’m not familiar with these coding languages so I mostly copy and paste codes.

Now I can run web server and open the page and there are two buttons that let me turn the output pins 4 and 5 to on or off.

But as I want to control my car, I want have 2 input boxes that I enter a value in each one (value is time in millisecond) and then hit a button and send the values and then turn pins 4 and 5 on for that length of time and then turn them off.

for example i want to turn the left motor on for 3 seconds and the right one for 4 seconds so I enter 3000 and 4000 in those input boxes and click on a button, then the pin 4 goes HIGH for 3000ms and pin 5 goes HIGH for 4000 ms.

Here is the code I’m using, help me do this by editing these codes not another way of designing HTML webpage.

/*********
  Rui Santos
  Complete project details at https://randomnerdtutorials.com  
*********/

// Load Wi-Fi library
#include <ESP8266WiFi.h>

// Replace with your network credentials
const char* ssid     = "BoomeRang ASHIYANE";
const char* password = "Mediators123456";

// Set web server port number to 8880
WiFiServer server(8880);

// Variable to store the HTTP request
String header;

// Auxiliar variables to store the current output state
String output5State = "off";
String output4State = "off";

// Assign output variables to GPIO pins
const int output5 = 5;
const int output4 = 4;

// Current time
unsigned long currentTime = millis();
// Previous time
unsigned long previousTime = 0; 
// Define timeout time in milliseconds (example: 2000ms = 2s)
const long timeoutTime = 2000;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(115200);
  // Initialize the output variables as outputs
  pinMode(output5, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(output4, OUTPUT);
  // Set outputs to LOW
  digitalWrite(output5, LOW);
  digitalWrite(output4, LOW);

  // Connect to Wi-Fi network with SSID and password
  Serial.print("Connecting to ");
  Serial.println(ssid);
  WiFi.begin(ssid, password);
  while (WiFi.status() != WL_CONNECTED) {
    delay(500);
    Serial.print(".");
  }
  // Print local IP address and start web server
  Serial.println("");
  Serial.println("WiFi connected.");
  Serial.println("IP address: ");
  Serial.println(WiFi.localIP());
  server.begin();
}

void loop(){
  WiFiClient client = server.available();   // Listen for incoming clients

  if (client) {                             // If a new client connects,
    Serial.println("New Client.");          // print a message out in the serial port
    String currentLine = "";                // make a String to hold incoming data from the client
    currentTime = millis();
    previousTime = currentTime;
    while (client.connected() && currentTime - previousTime <= timeoutTime) { // loop while the client's connected
      currentTime = millis();         
      if (client.available()) {             // if there's bytes to read from the client,
        char c = client.read();             // read a byte, then
        Serial.write(c);                    // print it out the serial monitor
        header += c;
        if (c == '\n') {                    // if the byte is a newline character
          // if the current line is blank, you got two newline characters in a row.
          // that's the end of the client HTTP request, so send a response:
          if (currentLine.length() == 0) {
            // HTTP headers always start with a response code (e.g. HTTP/1.1 200 OK)
            // and a content-type so the client knows what's coming, then a blank line:
            client.println("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
            client.println("Content-type:text/html");
            client.println("Connection: close");
            client.println();
            
            // turns the GPIOs on and off
            if (header.indexOf("GET /5/on") >= 0) {
              Serial.println("GPIO 5 on");
              output5State = "on";
              digitalWrite(output5, HIGH);
            } else if (header.indexOf("GET /5/off") >= 0) {
              Serial.println("GPIO 5 off");
              output5State = "off";
              digitalWrite(output5, LOW);
            } else if (header.indexOf("GET /4/on") >= 0) {
              Serial.println("GPIO 4 on");
              output4State = "on";
              digitalWrite(output4, HIGH);
            } else if (header.indexOf("GET /4/off") >= 0) {
              Serial.println("GPIO 4 off");
              output4State = "off";
              digitalWrite(output4, LOW);
            }
            
            // Display the HTML web page
            
            client.println("<!DOCTYPE html><html>");
            client.println("<head><meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width, initial-scale=1\">");
            client.println("<link rel=\"icon\" href=\"data:,\">");
            // CSS to style the on/off buttons 
            // Feel free to change the background-color and font-size attributes to fit your preferences
            client.println("<style>html { font-family: Helvetica; display: inline-block; margin: 0px auto; text-align: center;}");
            client.println(".button { background-color: #195B6A; border: none; color: white; padding: 16px 40px;");
            client.println("text-decoration: none; font-size: 30px; margin: 2px; cursor: pointer;}");
            client.println(".button2 {background-color: #77878A;}</style></head>");
            
            // Web Page Heading
            client.println("<body><h1>ESP8266 Web Server</h1>");
            
            // Display current state, and ON/OFF buttons for GPIO 5  
                    
                    
                    client.println("<p>Left Wheels<p>");
                    client.println("<p>Right Wheels<p>");
                    client.println("<p><a href=\"/go/left/right\"><button class=\"button\">GO!</button></a></p>");

                              client.println("<FORM ACTION=\"/5/on\" method=get >");

          client.println("Pin 4 \"on\" or \"off\": <INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME=\"LED\" VALUE=\"\" SIZE=\"25\" MAXLENGTH=\"50\">
");
client.println("Pin 5 \"on\" or \"off\": <INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME=\"LED2\" VALUE=\"\" SIZE=\"25\" MAXLENGTH=\"50\">
");


          client.println("<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT NAME=\"submit\" VALUE=\"Change Pin 4!\">");

          client.println("</FORM>");

          client.println("
");


                    
            client.println("<p>GPIO 5 - State " + output5State + "</p>");
            // If the output5State is off, it displays the ON button       
            if (output5State=="off") {
              client.println("<p><a href=\"/5/on\"><button class=\"button\">ON</button></a></p>");
            } else {
              client.println("<p><a href=\"/5/off\"><button class=\"button button2\">OFF</button></a></p>");
            } 
               
            // Display current state, and ON/OFF buttons for GPIO 4  
            client.println("<p>GPIO 4 - State " + output4State + "</p>");
            // If the output4State is off, it displays the ON button       
            if (output4State=="off") {
              client.println("<p><a href=\"/4/on\"><button class=\"button\">ON</button></a></p>");
            } else {
              client.println("<p><a href=\"/4/off\"><button class=\"button button2\">OFF</button></a></p>");
            }
            client.println("</body></html>");
            
            // The HTTP response ends with another blank line
            client.println();
            // Break out of the while loop
            break;
          } else { // if you got a newline, then clear currentLine
            currentLine = "";
          }
        } else if (c != '\r') {  // if you got anything else but a carriage return character,
          currentLine += c;      // add it to the end of the currentLine
        }
      }
    }
    // Clear the header variable
    header = "";
    // Close the connection
    client.stop();
    Serial.println("Client disconnected.");
    Serial.println("");
  }
}

I could find a way to put a text input with a button but I couldn’t figure out how to use it in the way that I want, I put this code in next comment

#2

before posting the code, let me mention that I want to make the pins go High together not one after each other, for example pin 4 goes HIGH now for 3 secs, and pin 5 goes HIGH now for 5 secs.

//zoomkat 1-10-11
//web LED code
//for use with IDE 1.0
//open serial monitor to see what the arduino receives
//use the \ slash to escape the " in the html
//address will look like http://192.168.1.102:84/ when submited
//for use with W5100 based ethernet shields

#include <SPI.h>
#include <Ethernet.h>

byte mac[] = { 0xDE, 0xAD, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0xED }; //physical mac address
byte ip[] = { 192, 168, 1, 102 }; // ip in lan
byte gateway[] = { 192, 168, 1, 1 }; // internet access via router
byte subnet[] = { 255, 255, 255, 0 }; //subnet mask
EthernetServer server(84); //server port

String readString;

//////////////////////

void setup(){

  pinMode(4, OUTPUT); //pin selected to control
  //start Ethernet
  Ethernet.begin(mac, ip, gateway, subnet);
  server.begin();

  //enable serial data print
  Serial.begin(9600);
  Serial.println("servertest1"); // so I can keep track of what is loaded
}

void loop(){
  // Create a client connection
  EthernetClient client = server.available();
  if (client) {
    while (client.connected()) {
      if (client.available()) {
        char c = client.read();

        //read char by char HTTP request
        if (readString.length() < 100) {

          //store characters to string
          readString += c;
          //Serial.print(c); //uncomment to see in serial monitor
        }

        //if HTTP request has ended
        if (c == '\n') {

          ///////////////
          Serial.println(readString);

          //now output HTML data header

          client.println("HTTP/1.1 200 OK");
          client.println("Content-Type: text/html");
          client.println();

          client.println("<HTML>");
          client.println("<HEAD>");
          client.println("<TITLE>Arduino GET test page</TITLE>");
          client.println("</HEAD>");
          client.println("<BODY>");

          client.println("<H1>HTML form GET example</H1>");

          client.println("<FORM ACTION=\"http://192.168.1.102:84\" method=get >");

          client.println("Pin 4 \"on\" or \"off\": <INPUT TYPE=TEXT NAME=\"LED\" VALUE=\"\" SIZE=\"25\" MAXLENGTH=\"50\">
");

          client.println("<INPUT TYPE=SUBMIT NAME=\"submit\" VALUE=\"Change Pin 4!\">");

          client.println("</FORM>");

          client.println("
");

          client.println("</BODY>");
          client.println("</HTML>");

          delay(1);
          //stopping client
          client.stop();

          /////////////////////
          if(readString.indexOf("on") >0)//checks for on
          {
            digitalWrite(4, HIGH);    // set pin 4 high
            Serial.println("Led On");
          }
          if(readString.indexOf("off") >0)//checks for off
          {
            digitalWrite(4, LOW);    // set pin 4 low
            Serial.println("Led Off");
          }
          //clearing string for next read
          readString="";

        }
      }
    }
  }
}
#3

First of all "Karma added for actually creating a proper html page" How many people don't do that you can't believe.
Your html-code is difficult to read due to all those "client.println()" statements, and since on an ESP thee String class is quite usable (if kept local) i tend to first make the page into a single String and then send it. I always use ESPwebserver, it has better overview, but this is a bit beside the point.
The solution is not difficult, you need to create a form in which either you use 2 entry fields for each GPIO, and a separate 'submit' button, then the data from both fields will be included.

#4

"I could find a way to put a text input with a button but I couldn't figure out how to use it in the way that I want,"

Have you googled "web page text box"? A text box will send the contents of the box to the server, where it can be evaluated and acted upon.

#5