RE: Re: Wildcarding query

["Edward Pearson" <edward.mailgroup@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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The main use I make of wild cards is to give some location/device
independence in my setup. Eg, recently I moved my X10 connector to a new
server. So its address moved from ersp.x10.pacifc to ersp.x10.baltic. The
various controllers on the network are setup to target ersp.x10.* so
everything continued to work after the move. But this is still only the
'static' setup you described as humans coming up with; it was me (I'm
human)
that decided to configure the controllers that way. I'm curious at to what
you had in mind for 'autonomous controllers'...

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From: Kevin Hawkins [mailto:lists@xxxxxxx]
Sent: 06 January 2005 15:53
To: xAP_developer@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [xAP_developer] Re: Wildcarding query


Hi David,

Using an ID=* line in a BSC cmd is  a very easy (aka lazy) way of
controlling devices as you then dont have to know  the UID in advance
.... this is typically used in conjunction with a non wildcarded target
line though.  I guess your meaning where ID =* but you also have a
wildcarded address.  My C-Bus controller handles this dual 'overlap'
wildcarding plus also I do generate wildcard addressing from switch
closures or script messages that turn on and off collections of lights ,
so I guess yes I do use this.    There isn't available (yet) a true xAP
based controller , either as a piece of hardware or an application ,
Homeseer can achieve this via scripts but obviously there are neater
approaches , perhaps like your own implementation where the xAP engine
is directly integrated with the state table.

Another thing I will mention is that there is a proposal for xAP
"groups and scenes" - a way of managing membership of a named
group
which is totally independent of the source addressing - for example a
device can be a member of group 'security' - this may be more
appropriate for your needs. This has been knocking around for almost two
years now in an unofficial form and Edward/James/myself are working on
formalising an official.   This form of grouping of devices is probably
much easier and flexible than wildcard constructs where hierarchies need
managing too.

Also ... I am at about 'alpha 4' of my BSC skeleton application in VB -
if you are using VB for testing I can send you what I have so far.  A
sample app includes BSC devices of both input and output  , and one of
each possible type - ie 6 in all. It implements (I believe) full
wildcarding.

Kevin


David Buckley wrote:

>
>Just a random query....
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>Having now got a subset of BSC implemented, using a couple of toy test
>programs, and the BSC mapper, and none of the wildcard code yet(!), I
>have a big question about wildcards in general.
>
>Has anyone got a controller that actually generates wildcarded
>commands off its own bat?  I can see how humans would generate a
>wildcard to intelligently set a related group of things, but howzabout
>an autonomous controller???  Anyone been there??
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>Yahoo! Groups Links
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