xPL Information Update

[Tony T]

Hi all,

There has been some development going on with xPL between Ian, John and
myself.

Please be assured that these development's in no way effect any existing
devices/applications, backward compatibility has been maintained at all
times. Also, development/support on the existing vb6 applications will
continue as required.

To summarise the development,

An xPL .net library
This is a .net dll that provides all the xPL functions required to develop
your own .net xpl applications. It provides all the basic requirements of
sending/receiving/processing xpl messages, But in addition does all the
hardwork for you concerning the more advanced features described below. You
can literally create a .net application or service in minutes once you
become familiar with it's use.

A new release of xPLHal scripting engine for xPL systems, based on john's
.net library This is available as a service (for NT4/W2K/XP) and can be
provided as an exe for those wishing to run it on non-nt based operating
systems (requires .net) It's main features are:
1) Scripting engine, providing expanded capabilities over the vb6 version
2) Built-in hub (use is optional)
3) Configuration manager (see later)
John has also written a web based asp.net front end for xPLHal, with an
open
tcp protocol language, that provides access to various aspects of xPLHal,
along with the ability to remote configure other xPL devices/applications.
Please note that I will release quick start guides to xPLHal as soon as
work
allows.

Advanced Remote configuration is now a reality
A brief summary of the configuration process is,
When a device/app is detected on the network sending a config.basic/app
message, xPLHal looks for an existing (cached) configuration file, if it
exists it will send the configuration automatically. If no cached
configuration is available it looks for a vendor supplied file detailing
the
app/device's configurable items (if this file does not exist it attempts to
query the device/app for a list of configurable items, and will cache this
information for later use). If no information can be gathered (e.g.
existing
vb6 application) then it is assumed it supports the minimum configurable
items specified in the existing xpl documentation. The installer/user can
then configure the device via the web interface. Futher enhancements will
include the ability to query a web address for vendor files.

Although xPLHal .net is the only current config manager, users are free to
create their own config managers (or their own front ends to xplhal) as all
information is freely available.

There are a number of .net services available,
A Hub
A CM12 app
A Text-to-speech app
An XQL database (no longer a part of xPLHal)
A Dawn Dusk app
And others are in development

And, of course, all of these interoperate fully with existing devices/apps.

Most of the above will, hopefully, be demonstrated at ukha2003 - so please
drop in if you are there!

More information/downloads are available at the following websites
<a href="http://www.xplproject.org.uk";>http://www.xplproject.org.uk</a>
<a href="http://www.xpl.myby.co.uk/";>http://www.xpl.myby.co.uk/</a>
<a href="http://www.xplhal.com";>http://www.xplhal.com</a>

Please feel free to ask any questions, make suggestions for improvements
etc

P.S. we are still looking for linux developers!

Many thanks
Tony