configuration, GUIs etc

[Patrick Lidstone]

Just a quick note to tell you chaps what I've been working on
recently...

I have put together a Win/32 GUI for xAP devices - a kind of dash
board (xAP-Dash). The dash discovers all instances of xAP devices
automatically, monitors heartbeats and provides a hierarchical
explorer-type view of them/their status, so you can see at a glance
if something is wrong.

The dash supports dynamic plug-ins, so each device can have its own
custom configuration dialogue embedded into the app. This can extend
to a control panel, allowing simple testing/manual interaction with
the remote device.

I've been playing with configuration protocols, and think I have
something workable - I can detect conflicting updates from two
different points on the network and can also potentially restore
configuration to a device that has soft-reset. One or two more
wrinkles to iron out.

Bringing all xAP components together in one place from anywhere the
network works really well.

I'll post some screen shots when I get a bit of time. I plan to
document the plugin API once it's all stable if anyone wants to add
support for their own devices.

Patrick