06-15-2019, 09:17 AM
June 15, 2019 - CQC Version 5.4 Released
Version 5.4 is now official available. This has been primarily a retrenchment release, going back and doing some fairly brutal but necessary work to catch the CIDLib/CQC code base up with more recent C++ language features that help the C++ compiler watch our back on a daily basis, and others to just make some things easier to do in the future or safer to do. These types of releases may be a bit boring in terms of features, but they have to be done periodically in order to keep the product solid and maintainable. 
The more significant changes in this version are:
New MQTT Driver. CQC now supports MQTT as a client, meaning that there is an MQTT driver that can connect to MQTT servers and expose the information it provides as CQC fields. This helps expand CQC's device support capabilities without having to have specific drivers for all of these devices, and there are quite a few that support MQTT. MQTT is a messaging system, where devices can register 'topics' on an MQTT server and store a value for each topic. Others can register to be made aware of changes to those topics, which is what the CQC driver does. You provide a configuration file that tells CQC how to map MQTT topic content (the structure of which is not at all well defined) to CQC driver fields.
New/Improved Drivers. There are new drivesr for Purple Air multi-sensors, the Sony Bravia line of TVs, the Open Weather Map service, and a lot of improvements to the Sonos Zone Player, and to the underlying UPnP framework which makes all UPnP drivers more performant and efficient. The new Z-Wave driver has more device support and capabilities.
Triggered Events. Triggered events now support bi-directional latching, i.e. they can be set up to trigger only when transitioning between states in either direction, whereas before they only could do it in one direction. For instance you could trigger when the internal temperature goes either above or below a particular level. They can also now be marked as 'serialized', which means only one instance of such an event will run at once, avoiding the problem of multiple simultaneous instances interfering with each other.
Just Add Power Serial Ports. CQC now can make use of the serial ports on Just Add Power units, just as it does for Global Cache devices. You just configure them and they become available as serial ports within CQC.
High Res Monitor Support. The Admin Interface and Interface Viewer are now High DPI aware, which means that Windows no longer lies to us and tells us everything is 1920x1080. We know will see the full resolution of high res monitors.
CQC Terminal. We've added a little command line terminal program to aid with spelunking text based serial/socket based device protocols, which is often necessary when doing a driver. Since Windows doesn't come with one anymore, this may avoid any need to install a third party product.
WebRIVA. The extension mechanisms for WebRIVA were improved to make it easier to get Web Camera support into the WebRIVA clients.
Deprecation of Old RIVA
We have now officially deprecated use of the old RIVA system, which has been superseded by the newer WebRIVA system. Most likely the old RIVA system will be removed from CQC in the next release. WebRIVA is superior in pretty much every way, and the old third party RIVA clients are no longer supported anyway.
Try It
You can download the new version from our web site, and try it out unencumbered for 40 days. So you can know for sure whether it meets your needs before you commit. Use the Get Started link at the top of the main page.
Version 5.4 is now official available. This has been primarily a retrenchment release, going back and doing some fairly brutal but necessary work to catch the CIDLib/CQC code base up with more recent C++ language features that help the C++ compiler watch our back on a daily basis, and others to just make some things easier to do in the future or safer to do. These types of releases may be a bit boring in terms of features, but they have to be done periodically in order to keep the product solid and maintainable. 
The more significant changes in this version are:
New MQTT Driver. CQC now supports MQTT as a client, meaning that there is an MQTT driver that can connect to MQTT servers and expose the information it provides as CQC fields. This helps expand CQC's device support capabilities without having to have specific drivers for all of these devices, and there are quite a few that support MQTT. MQTT is a messaging system, where devices can register 'topics' on an MQTT server and store a value for each topic. Others can register to be made aware of changes to those topics, which is what the CQC driver does. You provide a configuration file that tells CQC how to map MQTT topic content (the structure of which is not at all well defined) to CQC driver fields.
New/Improved Drivers. There are new drivesr for Purple Air multi-sensors, the Sony Bravia line of TVs, the Open Weather Map service, and a lot of improvements to the Sonos Zone Player, and to the underlying UPnP framework which makes all UPnP drivers more performant and efficient. The new Z-Wave driver has more device support and capabilities.
Triggered Events. Triggered events now support bi-directional latching, i.e. they can be set up to trigger only when transitioning between states in either direction, whereas before they only could do it in one direction. For instance you could trigger when the internal temperature goes either above or below a particular level. They can also now be marked as 'serialized', which means only one instance of such an event will run at once, avoiding the problem of multiple simultaneous instances interfering with each other.
Just Add Power Serial Ports. CQC now can make use of the serial ports on Just Add Power units, just as it does for Global Cache devices. You just configure them and they become available as serial ports within CQC.
High Res Monitor Support. The Admin Interface and Interface Viewer are now High DPI aware, which means that Windows no longer lies to us and tells us everything is 1920x1080. We know will see the full resolution of high res monitors.
CQC Terminal. We've added a little command line terminal program to aid with spelunking text based serial/socket based device protocols, which is often necessary when doing a driver. Since Windows doesn't come with one anymore, this may avoid any need to install a third party product.
WebRIVA. The extension mechanisms for WebRIVA were improved to make it easier to get Web Camera support into the WebRIVA clients.
Deprecation of Old RIVA
We have now officially deprecated use of the old RIVA system, which has been superseded by the newer WebRIVA system. Most likely the old RIVA system will be removed from CQC in the next release. WebRIVA is superior in pretty much every way, and the old third party RIVA clients are no longer supported anyway.
Try It
You can download the new version from our web site, and try it out unencumbered for 40 days. So you can know for sure whether it meets your needs before you commit. Use the Get Started link at the top of the main page.
Dean Roddey
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Explorans limites defectum