Re: X10

[Stuart Booth <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Steve,

I'm not sure how much you've worked out yet already, so I'll pop in
with some answers you may or may not already know. Hope at least a bit
of this will be useful !!

On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 20:25:49 +0100, "Steve Nye"
<steve@xxxxxxx> wrote:

>I am new to this and like the concept of multiple applications being
able to
>exchange information via a central hub.

In actual fact the central hub is only required on a PC running
multiple applications, so that all applications can hear the same
thing. You'll of course need one per PC on the network. Other
xAP-enabled devices plugged into the network (be it an Ethernet,
serial cable link, or wireless network) can send and receive messages
independently because everybody broadcasts their messages to
absolutely everybody else.

> However I am not really sure how to
>get started. I suppose for me control of my X10 devices would seem a
good
>intitial step forward.

If you've not played with any xAPplications yet, my own 'getting
started with some useful tools' was posted here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xap_automation/message/714

This details getting the Hub going (which based upon your comments
earlier I guess you've already sussed :-), Viewer to see messages and
Send to send xAP messages in text files.

This gives an easy way to write a xAP message and have it sent, and
hopefully processed by something else to be added...

> Howeve I am not sure what I need and how to connect
>it all up. I do have an operating X10 environment via a CM12 with a
>combination of wall and plugin units on a single housecode.  Is there a
>'get-you-started' set of instructions as to how to control my X10
>environment that I can master before looking at how to expand to do
some of
>the other things I am interested in?

Ummm, the next best thing I can do is point you at the xAP X10
Connector as written by Edward Pearson.

http://www.xapframework.net/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=44

This currently doesn't include any schema documentation (which would
allow you to form xAP messages in text files that you can transmit via
the Send app detailed above) as I'm not sure what it's using exactly.

Once I get some details on that I can tart it up as HTML and post it
in the usual places. Patrick has some related apps here

...or the version by Patrick:

http://patrick.lidstone.net/ha/xAP/xAP%20Projects/Applications/cm12u

There are a lot of xAP message schema detailed below, but this list
isn't complete at the moment (some new ones have come along such as IR
and others I'm sure).

http://www.xapautomation.org/modules.php?name=Sections&op=listarticles&secid=1

Patrick has a simple X10 schema but I don't know if this matches
Edward's uses:

http://patrick.lidstone.net/ha/xAP/Schema/X-10

HTH. Fire away with queries!

S
--
Stuart Booth <stuart@xxxxxxx>
xAPFramework.NET - a xAP software development framework for .NET

http://www.xapautomation.org/ 
     http://www.xapframework.net/