Re: xPL Developers

[Kevin Hawkins <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ian Lowe wrote:

>
>>(Frank wrote) Ummm......Must admit i did like the look of the front
end thing that
>>was done for xAP...
>>
>
>
>Yeah - the reaction at UKHA was pretty indicative, I think. Despite the
>fact that (to the HA purist) the xAP desktop doesn't actually *do*
>anything, it had no end of admirers.
>
>I think my own reaction must have been somewhat akin to giving a kid a
>wonderfully intricate and interesting toy to play with, only to come
>back to find them sitting in the empty box making car noises. ;)
>
>I recall re-installing decomissioned servers and disk packs back into a
>rack at a previous employer, so that there would be plenty of flashing
>lights for the visit of the top brass... The power of flashy lights
must
>never be underestimated!
>
>
>
I am conscious this is an xPL list so I  try not to 'campaign'  here
but  I feel  the above is unfair & you may not have discovered the full
potential of xAP Desktop

It is a truly graphic input and output front end that integrates neatly
into your Windows desktop. It supports multiple 'widgets' with realtime
display of rich textual information and graphic images and can translate
co-ordinate or object based clicks into appropriate triggers/events in
xAP eg an on screen fader for a light. Additionally it supports an
enhanced VB script language in much the same way as xPL HAL does (but no
wizards/determinators).  So it is hardly a disappointment feature wise,
in fact most people only use a fraction of its features and are
continually surprised at all its capabilities. It is  positioned as the
UI and not a complete HA control system as it does not include for
example a scheduler although this could be partially achieved using
scripts. It is one of the components in your xAP HA setup and may if
desired be augmented by HomeSeer or HomeVision perhaps as a  controller
engine. I am not sure what other features you feel it should have but
ask away and James may get them on the wishlist ;-)

The  thing of potential interest to everyone on this list is that it can
be used with xPL should you so wish :-) by translating xPL to xAP and vv
using the scriptable bridge built into xPL HAL. I run a hybrid xAP and
xPL environment here. Indeed I am just working on using xAP Desktop to
display information and control my Rio players using the xPL RioNet
software which incidently is a great conduit, significantly more capable
than  the xAP counterpart. Shortly I will extend this to MVP desktop
display I hope. I am looking to see if I can get the cover art displayed
too on my floating Rio controller in much the same way you can with say
the SliMP3 one.  The bridge within xPLHAL is very much under utilised
feature but it essentially allows people to mix and match  xPL or  xAP
applications albeit with the need to script the schema translations.  I
pick and choose from both xAP and xPL applications in my setup here
choosing the most appropriate  tool for the job. The scriptable bridge
is ideal for exactly this usage - providing usage of an x application in
either environment. Indeed it was implemented for this exact pupose


Kevin