Re: RE: Homeseer developments

[Kevin Hawkins <yahoogroupskh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been playing too ... HomeSeer Touch app is obviously still an
early
beta product but looks like it could shape up well over time, and there
are hints of a Linux / Mac / iPhone client eventually too. There are a
few key aspects still to iron out (overlapping objects, Z-Order and
transparencies) but each beta gets better. For those already using HS  I
think the features, ease of use and integration with HS will make it an
obvious, albeit costly choice. BTW it works as a touchscreen via the xAP
HS plugin too ;-)

The touchscreen front end is more expensive than HS itself which
surprised me and as a new purchase (RRP HS $200 + HST $250 5 client
limit) it's quite costly - and most HS device plugins are chargeable now
- HouseBot for example provides this functionality for just $70 and
MainLobby is $99.    HS is a more complete HA engine than HB but the TS
application is similar.  MainLobby has several extra modules (eg
MLServer $99) that you also need to factor in.     CQC is in the same
ballpark as HS+HST

I too found MainLobby a frustrating environment but the graphic results
it can achieve are very polished.  The HS integration (MLHS plugin)
works fine though.  My concern with ML has always been the closed nature
of their environment and their difficult policies (hence no native xAP
plugin for ML even though one was written) - they really do want to
control / squeeze the most $ possible out of their users and developers.


K


(Paul Gordon wrote:
> I think it's pretty good actually...
>
> I last looked at mainlobby about 3 years ago, and all I can remember
now
> of the experience is a lot of weeping & wailing & gnashing of
teeth (& a
> fair bit of swearing too!), at the non-intuitiveness of the design
> environment, and of getting good integration with HomeSeer. I pretty
> much gave up on it when my trial period expired based on the
usability,
> and also I balked a little at the price at the time, - once I'd worked
> out that I would actually need to purchase several distinct mainlobby
> components, and what the total cost of those components was going to
> be...
>
> Obviously that was a long time ago, and I may not have given it a fair
> go at the time...
>
> HST (Homeseer Touch) supports pretty much any/all currently popular
> graphics format, although transparency is only possible with .GIF and
> .PNG files, - I suspect this is attributable to the abilities of the
> file formats themselves rather than any limitation of HST though?...
>
> The included set of graphics at this point in time is still fairly
> limited, but it has grown with each beta release... - the first beta I
> tried had almost no included graphics at all.
>
> It's utterly trivial though to use your own graphics. - just find a
set
> of graphic files you like, and put them into HST's skins folder, and
> they then appear in the IDE for you to simply drag & drop onto
your
> screen designs.
>
> If you're not "graphically challenged" (unfortunately I am),
then it's
> also very easy to use your own home-grown graphic elements in just the
> same way.
>
> Because everything is based on standard formats, any graphic you find
> can be used as any type of element in HST... - am I right in thinking
> that some bits of mainlobby are in some way proprietary?...
>
> Paul G.
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx [mailto:ukha_d@xxxxxxx] On Behalf
>>
> Of
>
>> Paul Gale
>> Sent: 20 November 2008 10:50
>> To: UKHA Group
>> Subject: [ukha_d] RE: Homeseer developments
>>
>> What's the graphic support like with out of the box graphics icons
etc
>>
> - I
>
>> looked at some of the screen shots - how does it compare to Main
lobby
>>
> for
>
>> example (who have some fairly good button design in places)?
>>
>> Paul.
>>
>>
>>
>
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