Field Generator - Beta version

[Fonceur]

The motivation of this CQC driver, is to provide a way to interact with applications developed outside the constraints of CML, through a TCP connection (Encoding: UTF-8). The flow goes something like this:

• SomeApp.exe creates a TCP server on port 9600 and starts listening.
• A FieldGenerator instance establishes a TCP connection on port 9600.
• Following a successful connection, SomeApp.exe issues the command: "<STX>AppVersion|1.2<ETX>".
• FieldGenerator is now "connected to the device" and ready for use.
• SomeApp.exe creates various fields in FieldGenerator.
• SomeApp.exe sets the field values in FieldGenerator.
• A template is created in the interface editor to display the fields from the FieldGenerator instance.
• Using the interface viewer, the user gets to see the states of SomeApp.exe.
• Writing to the fields of FieldGenerator sends back a message (over TCP) to SomeApp.exe.

The instructions are provided on the Wiki.

[Dean Roddey]

Actually you can't use anything other than alphanum, underscore, and hyphen for field names anyway.

[gacevich]

fonceur, what application do you have in mind that caused u to develop this driver?

[Fonceur]

Originally Posted by gacevich

fonceur, what application do you have in mind that caused u to develop this driver?

1) I have developed some addons for BeyondTV, which rely on a .dll to access the BTV API, but recreating all those SOAP calls in CML would be way too painful... While I don't plan on writing that BeyondTV plugin just yet (or for a few months), I figured I might as well get that part done now...

2) For development, I need a driver that will act like a "CQC variable driver", but when a template is re-imported on a different machine won't jump to an existing and unrelated variable driver. This will be a second driver, but will use much of the same logic, just without the TCP part...

3) Tallus LLC (i.e. DavidL) is planning some "Home Automation neutral" applications, which can be used with CQC, MainLobby, HomeSeer, etc., so this driver would be the way in...

[gacevich]

thanks. as a btv user, i was hoping you would say that.

[brotsten]

All three of the BTV users can get excited now.

We are patiently waiting for the opportunity to sneer at all those yappy Sage types!

Brian

[gacevich]

and when the hdpvr becomes stable with btv we will really have something to crow about.

[SomeWhatLost]

just come over to the dark side.... its much better over here... we have sage hd extenders....
they are very nice...

[brotsten]

Originally Posted by SomeWhatLost

just come over to the dark side.... its much better over here... we have sage hd extenders....
they are very nice...

No thanks, I tried it. I liked a lot of it's functions, but it's not nearly as intuitive as BTV.

Brian

[SomeWhatLost]

Originally Posted by brotsten

No thanks, I tried it. I liked a lot of it's functions, but it's not nearly as intuitive as BTV.

Brian

true...

but one of these days, you will succumb to the dark side