Re: Webserver interface

["Powell Andy / AMS" <andy.powell@xxxxxxx>]

Dan,

thanks for your post.

> I have some ideas and I have done most of what I am going to suggest. 
I
am
> currently working on the web interface for Comfort and much of what I
am
> going to say I am also doing for it.

The beauty of 'cheap' cable/ADSL access is that it's opening up so many
possibilities for everyone...

>
> I am not a HS user, so I may make some assumptions here that are
incorrect.
> But, I think that you may already be able to do most of what you want
with
> what you already have.

I have to confess that whilst developing my own HA software I'd like to
have
the house 'up and running' so I've got myslf a copy of Homeseer.. which is
actually a very good product and does allow you to interface with it. One
of
the first things I did was to implement an MP3 alarm clock which monitors
particular house codes using Homeseers abiility to act as an ActiveX
server.
The code for that was knocked up in about 10 minutes.. it's that simple.


> In general, I think you should be able to use ASP and HTML to make
your
own
> pages that get info from HS and dynamically build a web page.

I really do need to take a look at ASP, I haven't really taken much time to
do this but it's on my list of 'things to learn about'.

If using IIS as the web server (or your own web server written in VB6) you
can create a
> reference to HS and then use that object to access info in HS.

This is essentially what I've done as Homeseer can act as an ActiveX
server.
What I'm really wanting to do is use DCOM/COM so I can run the webserver on
a different machine - this gives a little more security control over access
to Homeseer. Althoug in its first guise it wont utilise this it will be
introduced later.

One of the things that I'm quite pleased about is that if I want to I can
allow anyone to VIEW the status of a device. On my test page for example I
have the status of my computer desk lamp. If I have the 'Allow public
viewing' box checked on the webserver it will display it on the page to
anyone, if it's unchecked the webserver removes the code from the page
(unless you have authorised yourself) - so that they would actually have no
idea that it was there in the first place.


> Now, if using PWS

Now where's the fun in that! ;-)

> I am assuming that HS has methods in its COM interface that can
provide
you
> with the status of each device.  I also assume that HS has methods
that
you
> can call to execute commands (on, off, etc.).  If this is true, then I
think
> this approach will work.  It would only require you to write a dll (so
PWS
> users could use this)

> and then write some ASP pages.

that would be the hard bit - I know little or nothing about ASP -  in fact
all I do know is that it essentially defeats the object of the HTTP
protocol
i.e send information back to the user a bit at a time, text first, then
images etc so that the page is 'useable' immediately. But the same could be
said of VBScript/Java etc.

>You would not have to write a web server.  Then, anyone that knows asp
and
html can easily make
> their own pages.

But with /my/ webserver I have full control over it. I can strip out the
cr*p I don't want/use and you can still use VBScript/Javascript with it to
achieve similar results to the ASP/HTML combo. The other thing is in these
days of 24x7 access available to all it's difficult to know who you can
trust. Programs can have backdoors etc.  and the only way to be *sure* that
this isn't the case is to write you own, and the only way eveyone else can
be *sure* that you aren't doing it is to release the source. I mean you
wouldn't want the programmer of an internet interface to your life support
system to be able to turn it off without your consent - Before anyone
mentions it I know that you shouldn't use X10 for critical stuff!! :-))


A.



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