Outdated Drivers

[karenlee]

Hi

I was wondering how often the list of drivers gets cleaned up, because there seem to a couple there that no longer work? (The horoscope driver no longer works - not that I'd ever use it, I was just playing around to see how it would work). Also, there is a reminder database which is not referenced in the Driver List, so I could not find out what it does/how to use it, and assume that is also defunct? How many other drivers are defunct? (I'm trying to gain an overall idea of CQC functionality - have a long list of drivers makes CQC seem very functional, but if some of them are no longer viable it changes the picture a bit...)

Karen

[znelbok]

Drivers for hardware wont outdate as long as the hardware is still around.

Drivers like the horoscope driver are based on web scraping and can easily become outdated if not actively maintained.

One of the biggest concerns for me is that Dean does not have all the drivers that are developed by users and it can be difficult to find something that is needed. When you do find it it is sometimes for an older version of CQC and you need to somehow get it "upgraded" to be compatible with the current version you are using.

I want to see a driver store where users put their drivers and make it one central spot for finding drivers. Drivers would also need to be kept up to date for the current version of CQC.

I asked Dean if we could have a new sub section in the forums for drivers but nothing eventuated.

Mick

[Dean Roddey]

I just don't think such a section would end up really any more organized than the existing beta drivers section. I can't keep up with everything people are doing, so it would be up to them to make sure everything is correct, and they won't likely keep up with everything that is going on elsewhere.

And there's no way to just let one person post on a thread, so people will ask questions and discussion will ensure and the official info will get lost just like it currently does. It's difficult to avoid.

I ask pretty regularly for new or updated drivers to get into the release, but the folks who do them often don't have the time and/or energy to get the docs and such together.

The reason some drivers are not included in the driver list is because they are just third party drivers and have never been added. I'm very leary about adding complex third party drivers to the shipped driver list because if those people go away, we will be stuck supporting them and that's not practical. Some of the cost of having a lot of drivers available is accepting that third parties will do some of them and that therefore the support may be spotting or go away. It's just the nature of the beast, and it's the same for any automation system. At least in our case the source code is there so others can take it up if they choose.

I will remove the Horoscope driver. Really, unless someone provides a paid, structured data feed of horoscope data, it's pretty doomed to try to keep such a driver working.

[karenlee]

Is the Reminder Database still a valid driver?

[Dean Roddey]

I don't know. If so, there should be a thread on it in the Beta Drivers section where you can ask about it.

[wuench]

There are basically 3 concerns when loading a beta driver...

1.) If the only thing posted is a CQC Driver Pack file, it may be too old to import. If the source files are not also posted, you would need to reach out to the author to see if you can get them. If the source files are available those can be dropped into the proper directories manually and CQC bounced to pick up the driver.

2.) A breaking change may have occurred that may cause issues, only way to know for sure is to load it an try it out. It's rare but there have been a few of these...

3.) The author may no longer be around to support the driver

Of course if you take the deep dive into learning CML you can take care of the last two on your own... :-)