Re: Question re X10 module (a bit long!)

["Mark McCall" <mark@xxxxxxx>]

Paul

Here's a repy from Dan on the ACE questions...

M.

> >BTW...ACE has built in support for Winamp enabling you to use
> your Comfort
> >Keypads round the house to control your MP3 Jukebox!  Look out for
the
> >Comfort Web InterfACE review (nearly ready).
>
> This interests me, as I have spent some considerable effort lately
gettin=
g
> Homeseer to control Winamp. - the difficult part being that they are
on
> different PC's. I presume ACE can do this easily because of its
modular
> client/server architecture? - Not so simple with Homeseer though!

Yes.  ACE can easily be used to control Winamp on any pc on your network.
There is an ACE module called ACE-32 that needs to run on the same PC as
Winamp.  You can then send commands to control Winamp from any ACE Server
o=
r
ACE Client PC.  And, a new feature of ACE-32, soon to be released, is the
ability to control 4 separate Winamps.  The 4 Winamps can all be on the
sam=
e
pc, or on 4 different PC's.  (not sure if you can get 4 sound cards in 1 pc
yet, but 2 is possible).  This allows you to use Winamp for 4 zones of
music, and ACE can control the all.

> - I've got
> it doing pretty much everything I want it to though, by using a
> serial port
> plugin for Winamp, and connecting the two PC's together with a Null
modem
> cable. - The plugin can send user-configurable status information out
the
> serial port, which Homeseer can read, and Homeseer can control Winamp
> functions. There is ONE thing that I cannot get it to do, (because the
> serial port plugin only supports a predefined selection of winamp
> commands),
> which is to randomise the playlist (CTRL-SHIFT-R) -

I just checked and ACE does not support the shuffle command or the
randomiz=
e
playlist command.  But, the shuffle command is documented in the Winamp
API=
.
It would take me 1 minute to add the ability to toggle shuffle on and off.
It's on my to-do list now :)  If the randomize feature is a must, I can
loo=
k
into doing that too.  ACE can already send keys to the winamp window, but
i=
t
gets tricky since the window title changes with the name of each song being
played.  Thus, ACE ususally gets the window handle from Windows and uses
that.

> it would be easy if they
> were on the same machine.. (hs.keys). However, I think I may have
found a
> solution to that as well now, in the form of another plugin for
winamp:
> NETSYNCH - this allows two PC's both running winamp to have both
winamps
> synchronise with each other over a LAN - whatever happens in one
> winamp also
> happens in the other. - The audio is also synchronised, so this may
have
> potential uses in whole-house audio applications. I reckon I could
have
> Homeseer run a local copy of winamp, synchronise it with the one on my
MP=
3
> machine, and then use hs.keys to send a CTRL-SHIFT-R to the local
> instance,
> which should then be replicated in the remote winamp. (hopefully)

Your idea of Netsynch might just solve your problem.

> Also, I don't currently run ACE - I may well do at some point, if
> there is a
> compelling reason to. However, I am conscious that as the number of
> disparate components in a HA system increase, so the problems inherent
in
> getting them to interoperate increase exponentially! Also, I
> don't have any
> touchscreens.

I agree about the number of different software products running.  That's
on=
e
reason I wrote ACE.  It does everything I need it to do, so I don't run a
lot of other software.  Of course, I hope it does everything that other
people need done too :)

One common misconception about ACE is that it is ONLY for touchscreens.
While I did design the ACE Client for use on some really cheap touchscreens
that were available about 3 years ago, it does not need to have a
touchscreen.  The client screens of buttons can just as easily be used from
any pointing device.  Believe it or not, I don't use a touchscreen for my
main interface any more.  They were only 640x480 and 16 shades of grey.  I
really need color and 1024x768 for my main interface, so the touchscreens
are in my workshop now.  I'm always looking for a good, inexpensive
touchscreen though.

Many ACE users don't even need to use the ACE Client.  ACE Server and
ACE-TTS and ACE-MS provide full network connectivitiy, text to speech,
emai=
l
sending, caller id support, scripting, and much more.  I don't want to
soun=
d
like an add, so I'll let you visit the ACE website for more info.

> ACE doesn't support the CM12U (does it?), and I hope that
> Homeseer will do everything that I want. (which with the upcoming TAPI
> support, it may well do)

No, ACE does not support the CM12 now.  But, it is planned to be added. 
AC=
E
we designed to provide remote control and monitoring of any HA system, so
i=
t
started out only supporting the main ha controllers - homevision, ecs,
stargate, omni, etc.  Each of those sytems has their own x-10, ir, i/o, and
so ACE just sends commands to each system, and the system takes care of how
to perform the command and what device to use.  However, since ACE has
grown, the need to support more devices has become greater.

I have looked at HomeSeer and like it a lot.  The developer seems very
dedicated and HS has quite the following these days.  If I was not a
developer of my own software, I would probably use it.

Dan (ACE developer)
www.honesoftware.com


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