RE: Introduction

["Adam Stevens" <adam@xxxxxxx>]

> > (www.the-firs.org).
>
> I like the "TiVo now watching" banner!

If only I had time to watch whatever it keeps recording :-)

> > Although I do some .net development, I'm more at home with
Delphi,
>
> I think Delphi can also use OCX's? In which case you might be
> able to use my VB OCX as a starting point prior to diving in to .net?

Ah yes, OCXs would be good.  At some point I'm going to have to make the
move to Delphi 2005, which will mean it'll be easier to integrate with
.net, but at the moment my problem is that my "main" product (eg,
the
one I get paid to write!) is written in win32, and I'm sure getting it
working with Delphi 2005 won't just be a case of recompiling! (although,
to be fair, I haven't tried yet).

> The xAP framework adds a lot of value - in terms of being
> able to connect to hubs, parse incoming message elements,
> build outgoing messages, validate messages and so.

Absolutely.  I don't doubt that for a moment.  It's simply a matter of
compatibility! - Certainly from what I've seen at xapframework.net a lot
of effort has gone into it.

> Nope, that's pretty much it. The message you need to send
> should be sent broadcast, not point to point, and it needs to
> adhere to the caller id schema to be visible within other xAP
> applications that are CID compliant, such as xAP desktop.

That's something else I need to get my head around.  I understand the
principle of different schemas for different device types, but I need
get my head around exactly how they fit together.

Also, what's the procedure if you need something added to an existing
schema?  For example, I've had a quick look at the CID/Meteor one, and
it occurs to me that CID.Incoming could do with an additional parameter
to indicate call origin (eg, PSTN/VoIP/Line number etc).

Thinking about CID, It does almost make things more complex.
Presumably, if you had a system which announced via voice and/or display
incoming CID, you'd need to do something like:

xAP CID --> xAP Database lookup (gets name from number) --> xAP
display/announce/logging(?)

...as there's nothing in the CID schema which indicates an announcement
message.  Don't get me wrong, I like the fact this is so modular, and I
guess it means that you can plug any CID-compliant xAP module into the
xAP database lookup module in the knowledge that it'll do any of the
additional stuff afterwards (on-screen display, SAPI announcements,
database logging of calls etc. etc).

> As
> I mentioned before, you should also try to make your apps
> hub-aware if possible.

Ah.  I was wondering how that worked.  Are hubs generally writing into
existing applications, or does the user need to know that he needs to
run a hub if he's running more than one xAP client on a PC?

Sorry for all the questions!

Cheers,
Adam.