xAP for Xlobby

[ptrinchi]

If you are using Xlobby for home automation (with xAP of course), let's us know what kind of installation you have

Heiko, I have take a look at your website but I don’t speak German

[CouchPotatoe]

Just to let people know that James has released a first version of the xAP plugin for V2 of HomeSeer. For those using Pierres' excellent xAP plugin for XLobby to connect to HomeSeer.

If you install the new version make sure you remove the old (v1) one or you'll get repeated errors in the log. I believe the new version is V2 only.

Details and download on http://www.mi4.biz

Kevin

Some release comments from James..

"This is an initial release of a HomeSeer2 compatible plugin. It is a work in progress but has all the features of the existing plugin. The event panels for IR,Device and event editing remain gui based and can be access through the HomeSeer2 application. All other interfaces are now web based including the new hardware wizard. The new plugin now features direct access to other xAP intranet applications and other intranet applications will show a reciprocal link too. The web interface makes using the plugin much easier and you no longer need to step through all new devices as you can go straight to the one you want."

[Aaron]

It would be cool if he made it for v1.7 (current version) also since I'm thinking many of us (including myself) will not upgrade to HS2.0 since it really has no new features, just costs more money.

Actually it is a pretty good "scam". I'm sure all software companies wished their users would pay new money for an "new" version that did not give them anything new to speak of.

I'm actually hoping XLobby can be a replacement for Homeseer on the X-10 front. If not, maybe Girder.

[CouchPotatoe]

It would be cool if he made it for v1.7 (current version) also since I'm thinking many of us (including myself) will not upgrade to HS2.0 since it really has no new features, just costs more money.

Actually it is a pretty good "scam". I'm sure all software companies wished their users would pay new money for an "new" version that did not give them anything new to speak of.

I feel that's perhaps a litle unfair on HomeSeer. the first release of V2 was always intended to be effectively a port from the old VB code to .Net - that's a fairly big task and they seem to have done it pretty well. Stability and backward compatabilty is most impressive. Then they indicated they would start to layer on the new features. (It is only a $40 upgrade). During the entire time I have owned v1 of HS (5 years) they have never charged me for an update so I'm assuming ,maybe wrongly, you buy into subsequent V2 updates for the lifetime of the release. Increasingly then new bits will only appear in HS2 which may entice you eventually.

I must admit at the moment there is little to gain and a bit to lose (the realtime UI) although the xAP plugin seems to run faster and is much easier to use, prettier visually and more functional . There is a trend for HS developers to charge for their plugins too of course but that effects V1 too.

I'm actually hoping XLobby can be a replacement for Homeseer on the X-10 front. If not, maybe Girder.

I am not sure XLobby would ever include a state machine, logic engine, scheduler and script engine.. or that it should as that's not it's raison d'etre. That is why the partnership with say HS via xAP is so matched. At the moment XLobby seems fairly 'calm' development wise. For X10 simple control that is all possible now with the xAP plugin and the xAP X10 conduit. Just 'if..then' and timed actions missing. As you explore X10 and other HA bits these aspects will become desireable....however...

GOOD NEWS : You can add all these using say (the free) xAP Floorplan from mi4. Ignore the inbuilt web based UI as you are using XLobby and just use the other bits to make things happen on xAP - it's effectively a xAP controller engine, even includes scripting. (a simplified/free HomeSeer if you like)

Girder is of course an option although aren't there still issues with capable two way interactions (data exchange) between Girder and XLobby - isn't the linkage mainly single directional - or have I got that wrong ? Girder has a wealth of plugins available for HA.

K

[Aaron]

My problem with buying 2.0 has a few facets:

a) HS dev has focused on adding features only a few people want, mostly the HS devs, and not fixed long standing issues with the product itself. They say they are addressing these things in 2.0 but I have a "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude considering the past performance.

b) Unfortunately HS has not announced the pricing structure for HS 2.xx
Yes, it is $40 to upgrade right now but who knows how much updates will be. Will be be charged for 2.0x, 2.x, or only X.x. With the "changes" to the pricing structure for the plug-ins (basically charging for what used to be free) I feel they are now removing much of what I got homeseer for... the community code and assistance. I personally, with the assistance of one other coder, put together a huge set of functions for a web interface (see screenshots here: http://members.cox.net/alevey/ha/hact.htm) so that HS could control your home from any IE browser. I did this as an example of what could be done, it is very trick. This is over a year before HS came out with thier crappy web interface. They totally ignored my and other requests to make a good, flexible, interface.

And now that I have a problem with my 1.7 RF (it is broken completely) they are showing their lack of caring and in over 2 weeks have done nothing to help... even with two support tickets! The good people in the community have helped but we cannot solve a problem with HS itself.

I used to love Homeseer and recommend it... not anymore.

[Bill Lott]

Several weeks ago I lost the ability to load xAPHub. I posted a similar message on the xAp message board but have been unable to fix the problem.

"I can’t get GUI hub to load. I tried re-installing but still get the attached error. What am I doing wrong? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I was using Homeseer-xAp-xLobby and things were working fine until I rebooted….

HubGUI.exe – Common Language Runtime Debugging Services

Application has generated an exception that could not be handled.

Process id=0x89c (2204), Thread id=0x8d0 (2256),

Click OK to terminate the application,

Click CANCEL to debug the application

If I click on CANCEL – I get the following message..

Registered JIT debugger is not available.


Do I stll need xAPHub in order to run xLobby-Homeseer plugin? Any suggestiions are greatly appreciated. I was realy enjoying the combination until xAPHub went south....


Thanks,



Bill Lott

[Hiller]

Bill,

I am by no means an xAP expert but I'll throw out a couple of ideas.

The hub needs to be the first thing loaded. Are you loading the hub before loading homeseer and xlobby?

Have you tried using the service version of the hub? It won't provide the GUI interface but will provide the same functionality. I like using this just so I know I have a hub loaded before any other xAP apps are loaded.

You probably already know this stuff but I thought I would throw the ideas out there anyway.

Steve

[Bill Lott]

Thanks for the tips Steve. I'm traveling this week but will give it a try when I return.

Where can I download the serveice version of the hub? I do have guiHub in my statrup directory, but it is stiill throwing off the errors messages above when attempting to load.

[CouchPotatoe]

just seen this - did you get it resolved Bill ?

- I suspect you might find the same error thrown by all that family of hubs as they are based on the xFx framework. Worth spending a bit of time trying to think what changed when it stopped working. Anything in the .Net area perhaps ?

If it's still not working try a post on the xAP Automation Yahoo group and Stuart ( the hub author ) will chirp up I'm sure. He doesn't check this board as he doen't use XLobby.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xap_automation

http://www.xapframework.net for hubs etc

kevin

[Bill Lott]

Thanks to all for the help. I'm now up and running with xlobby and Homeseer2 using the xap plugin. It seems that I had a corrupt hub file. Just deleted everything from xap folder and reloaded.

Is there a limit to the number of devices or .png files that can be used? I've built xlobby pages for each room in my house and have setup toggle functions for each device in xLobby that I want to control. I then created "room.devicename.on.png" and "room.devicename.off.png" for each device. There are about 75 of them.

Some of the devices are not showing up on my xLobby pages. When I use the skin editor to check that the item is setup properly everything looks OK - just no image.

An example is below:

Device: Upstairs Ceiling Light

In the text area of the screen editor I have: plugin>xAP-Xlobby>image>hallways.upstairs

In the event area of the screen editor I have:
xap: Toggle Ceiling Light (this event is valid and works correctly if I use the "test" button)

In the folder C:\Program Files\xlobby\plugins\xAP-Xlobby I have 2 files:
hallways.upstairsceilinglight.on.png
hallways.upstairsceilinglight.off.png

Any idea why this would work for some devices but not others???

[Bill Lott]

OK. Some progress is being made here. t looks like there is a limit to the number of devices you can control. I went through the Homeseer plugin and turned off a number of the devices that I was not using and now everything is displaying properly within xLobby.

Not sure what has changed but the toggle function in xLobby is no longer controlling Homeseer devices. The device status is displayed properly within xLobby, but the toggle function is no longer working.

If I turn a device on or off within Homeseer, xLobby displays the status correctly. However, I can not toggle the device within xLobby to update Homeseer. This used to work. I'm so close to getting this all working together. I have included a screen shot from xLobby.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I can see that the toggle function is being set from xLobby, but I'm not sure it is getting to xAp Hub or to Homeseer. Thanks again...

[ptrinchi]

I have problems also with the toggle function but not only with Xlobby, with a simple send message application also . Sometimes but not every times, if I send a toggle message, the device turn on and after one second turn off again. I'm not sure but I think the problem is in the xAP-Homesser plugin.
If I close all the applications (HS, XL and my xAPHub) and I restart, the problem disappears!!!

[lar282]

The next version is already in developpement

- Xlobby will detect if a xap hub is running on the computer. If not, it will start as a xap hub server so you won't need a hub anymore.
- Xlobby will show in its config form all the xap device available

and perhaps what aaron ask

Is this new one done?Did I understand it right that I do not need anything else than this plugin. No homeseer, no service running no nothing exept the new plugin with a GUI?

I was playing around with the one I found here:
http://france.xlobby.com/forum/ptrinchi/

and I got stock quates working but not mail notification. When switching on the debug, I got the popup dialog stating that the message arrived to xlobby but I cannot get the
plugin>xAP-Xlobby>text>New Mail
to work in a textbox. There is simply no text! Is it because of the space inbetween New and Mail!!!I tried using % but that didn't work either.

<message>
<name>New Mail</name>
<class>Mail.Incoming.New</class>
<address>*.*.*.*</address>
<body>
block=Message
state=[from]
text=testing
</body>
<xlobby></xlobby>
</message>


//Lasse

[ptrinchi]

Is this new one done?

The new version is actually in test with the Xlobby French team. I will probably post it in the beginning of October.

Did I understand it right that I do not need anything else than this plugin. No homeseer, no service running no nothing exept the new plugin with a GUI?

This version will be a xAP Hub, so you will not need anything else to make working together Xlobby and xAP world (no GUI Hub, no service...) only the xAP application you wanted to have.
This version will also be able to communicate with every kind of xAP application you will found because of the ability to setting the outgoing messages and the incoming messages. Actually, the tests are ok for:
- HomeSeer V1.7 (of course, it was the original reason I made this plugin)
but also:
- With ERSP x10 connector to control x10 without HomeSeer
- With KCSoft MailMonitor to be informs when mail incoming.
- With mi4 TTS Speech to … speak of course.

I was playing around with the one I found here:
http://france.xlobby.com/forum/ptrinchi/
and I got stock quates working but not mail notification. When switching on the debug, I got the popup dialog stating that the message arrived to xlobby but I cannot get the plugin>xAP-Xlobby>text>New Mail
to work in a textbox. There is simply no text! Is it because of the space inbetween New and Mail!!!I tried using % but that didn't work either.

No it's because of the device you ask to. plugin>xAP-Xlobby>text>New Mail asks the plugin to show text variable for the device New Mail but no New Mail device exist. If you are using KCSOFT MailMonitor your device is something like popxxxxx In the plugin configuration, check show incoming messages. A form with a text like this will appear.

xap-header
{
v=12
hop=1
uid=FF125001
class=Mail.Incoming.New
source=KCSoft.MailMonitor.MyComputer:pop_free_fr.ptrinchi
}
Message
{
msgid=<006101c5879a@sdfffg>
size=960
timestamp=Wed, 13 Sept 2005 13:01:18 GMT
from=ptrinchi<XXXXXX@free.fr>
total=1
subject=Test
to=ptrinchi<XXXXXXX@free.fr>
msg=1
}

The source line contains your device ID. In this example the device is pop_free_fr.ptrinchi so the Xlobby text zone must have plugin>xap-xlobby>state>pop_free_fr.ptrinchi or plugin>xap-xlobby>text>pop_free_fr.ptrinchi

Now try with this line in your events.xml

<message>
<name>New Mail</name>
<class>Mail.Incoming.New</class>
<address>*.*.*.*</address>
<body>
block=Message
state=[total] new incoming message from [from] at [timestamp].
text=The subject is [subject] abd the size is [size]
</body>
<xlobby></xlobby>
</message>

[lar282]

THANKS

Just got Stock info working and now working on the X10 CM11 xap app. this is a great plugin with alot of opertunities. good work..


//Lasse