Version 5.2 is released

[Dean Roddey]

Oct 15, 2017 - CQC Version 5.2 Released

Charmed Quark Systems, Ltd. is proud to announce the release of version 5.2 of their CQC automation platform. With the enormous 5.0 release, we massively revamped our administrative UI. In 5.1 we addressed more voice control options and web cameras. For this release our major focus has been on non-Windows touch screen support, bringing CQC touch screen interfaces to more platforms, much more cleanly.  

The more significant changes in this version are:

WebRIVA. Over the last number of years, CQC touch screen support on non-Windows clients was provided by a couple third party products for Android and iOS, which were based on our RIVA system (Remote Interface Viewer Architecture.) However, support for those product had waned, and improvements were difficult to implement, so we wanted to bring that functionality in-house. After much debate we decided to implement a browser based RIVA client.

WebRIVA is the result, and it is a significant improvement in our non-Windows client support. Since it is all in-house now we were able to make significant improvements in the features and performance of the RIVA system, and of course we can now support any client with a sufficiently modern browser, not just Android and iOS. So this is a huge step forward for us.

More Help. In 5.0 we completely reworked the help system, into a much nicer HTML format that ships with CQC. In 5.1 that work continued, bringing over the device support documentation. For 5.2 we have again significantly improved the HTML help, with much better layering of information detail to make it easier for those new to CQC to work their way into the product.

There are now three main levels: Big Picture, More Details, and Reference. The More Details section contains the old Big Picture content largely, and a new Big Picture section was created which is a much bigger big picture, at a significantly higher level, with plenty of links to more information.

Device Support. We've added support for the Monoprice Blackbird 4x4 matrix switcher, we updated the Nest driver to support the new Eco modes and home/away status for structures, and we added support for the Lutron Caseta system.


Try It

You can download the new version via the home page of the web site, and try it out unencumbered for 40 days. So you can know for sure whether it meets your needs before you commit.

Existing customers covered under the maintenance system can upgrade at their convenience.

[Dean Roddey]

A followup note related to the RIVA clients...

It is likely that we will drop support for the old, third party RIVA clients in the next release, and hence the RIVA server that supports them. It's unlikely anyone is still using them, and the new WebRIVA client is vastly superior anyway. So there seems to be no reason to continue maintain that code.

This will also release us from any limitations on interface system developments since we will no longer have to worry about backwards compatibility with those third party products. We will only then have to update our own WebRIVA client to follow any changes. This will benefit everyone.

Obviously if anyone has a legitimate reason not to do this, we can extend the support for some longer period of time, though it will ultimately get dropped eventually one way or another.

[Dean Roddey]

A file management snafu, sometimes in the industry referred to as stupidity, resulted in the downloads directory being deleted yesterday from our web server. That includes the installers, so the 5.2 installer was not available for a while. It is being re-uploaded, but 5.2 is available again now.

We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused. The culprit has been appropriately castigated.

[Dean Roddey]

Version 5.2.1 has been posted to the web site. This version has a small number of fixes, but the most notable ones deals with a change in the Windows 10 Creator Fall updates that will cause CQC's programs to go into infinite loops and eat up all of your machine's CPU. This is a simple change, which will work fine on other Windows versions as well, and it fixes this issue with the most recent updates.

So you should update to this new 5.2.1 version before your computer is scheduled to get the new Windows version, in order to avoid getting bitten by this problem.

[Dean Roddey]

A second followup release has been made available, 5.2.11. This includes many small fixes and improvements from the previous 5.2.1 version. It is now the official version on the web site.

Some of the improvements are:

• The Lutron RA2/HWQS/Casteta driver now has a client side interface, so you don't have to edit the configuration file by hand anymore. We didn't just covert over the old 4.8 version of it during the change to 5.x, because we wanted to start moving these client side interfaces towards a more 5.x scheme.
  
• The old legacy (non-QS) Homeworks driver also has had its client side interface implemented in 5.x style.
  
• The remote file selection dialog remembers the last path accessed for each file type, which significantly reduces busy work in many situations.
  
• The Interface Editor now has a Find tab, which lets you find widgets by various criteria. This is very useful in more complex templates.
  

But mostly this version is mostly about just taking care of all of the issues noticed by us or by users since 5.2.1. This is probably the last followup release, though there may be another one if any other issues come up that really need to be dealt with. But, otherwise, we are ready to move on towards the real beta phase for the next version, so that we can make some more substantial changes.

If you want to see a more detailed list of the changes, there is a 5.2 followup releases sticky thread at the top of the Support section of the forum that has that information.