xAP Flash nee Joggler beta 5

[Kevin]

BTW - is that HV variable documented somewhere - I'll go have a read...

If you issue commands on C-Bus that always include a level (rather than just on/off commands) then they always work as expected and you can allow the gateway to maintain an on@0 condition. That might be your best route. A combinational <mode> ability would solve this for you too .

If using the older <mode>dimmer</mode> then in some future beta I intend to support C-Bus ramp commands instead of successive 'goto' levels which will be considerably more efficient and smoother. I am not sure this could be used within sliders though as you would lose the immediate feedback aspect. You can already of course issue timed ramp commands to C-Bus from xAPFlash buttons using the <xAP> tags and sending a raw xAP message that includes the target level and ramp time.

You have a later firmware build in your gateway than the official release and so there are aspects that aren't in the current documentation. We did go through it on Skype so possibly it's in the history there ? I can't remember offhand but if you do decide you wish to change it let me know and I'll look at the code to see if we have a HV var that controls this. The one problem might be that I am running a slightly later version again than yours and IIRC you have a custom build for some reason - maybe even this reason - and so I might lose you something that we added just for you - does that ring any bells as to what it might have been ? I don't want to maintain forked versions of the firmware.

K

<edit> Within the C-Bus domain 0 is always OFF and >0 is always ON hence the behavioural decision we have to choose when extending to xAP where the two are totally independant - IDRANet/ Cortex is even harder as lights can have an 'off' brightness so that when you turn them off they just dim... Vagueries of X10 like always coming back on at full brightness - but only some models, and only some with status, plus the what state after dimming through zero make this a real 'chestnut'. Make it behave as expected for one and it doesn't for someone else.

[SiliconPixel]

Mmm, yes I can't remember either.

I agree forked firmware vers would be a nightmare too - maybe I should just try the standard latest f/w you have and try what you do and monitor what does/doesn't work - that would show up anything that doesn't work.

Is it just a case of setting one of the HV vars?

I don't have too many HV macros responding to CB - so wouldn't be too difficult to test I hope. i do use the X10 macro responses in HV with custom lighting - that doesn't change does it?

Thanks,

Paul.

[Kevin]

I'm in xAPFlash rather than C-Bus gateway mode at the moment so can you just bear with with fact that dimming to level 0 may turn your lights off FTTB and require a button press to bring them back on.

When I get a bit of spare time I'll revisit the issue and see what we can sort out and what my changes are in the firmware. May be best to solve this via multiple <mode> tags in xAPFlash allowing a lcontrol/slider to be setup.

Hoping to release beta 5 generally any day now - just hit a slight hiccup we need to address that's delaying it a bit.
Please everyone - now's an ideal time for feedback on any bugs or issues you may have...

K

[SiliconPixel]

I'm in xAPFlash rather than C-Bus gateway mode at the moment so can you just bear with with fact that dimming to level 0 may turn your lights off FTTB and require a button press to bring them back on.

When I get a bit of spare time I'll revisit the issue and see what we can sort out and what my changes are in the firmware. May be best to solve this via multiple <mode> tags in xAPFlash allowing a lcontrol/slider to be setup.

Hoping to release beta 5 generally any day now - just hit a slight hiccup we need to address that's delaying it a bit.
Please everyone - now's an ideal time for feedback on any bugs or issues you may have...

K

Yes - no problem at all - as you say, the multiple mode tags would be the most flexible way.

[BodgeIT]

Hi Kevin,
Was trying to get logged in yesterday to provide XAP messages re my issue of loosing status but couldn't login here for some reason! Go figure.
Anyway I just also wanted to mention that I'm experiencing random reboots of Joggler with this release. Haven't happened before and I can't pin it down to anything. Seems to happen if I restart xAPFlash a few times when changing xapconfig.xml and checking the results...but it has also happened at other times too.

Cheers
Gary

[SiliconPixel]

One area I've thought that would be great to look at during the few days I've been testing the latest beta is the way that the slider pops up.

Currenty you have to hold the button for what you think is long enough and then release it to get the slider popping up.

What I think would be more intuitive is if the slider would popup on expiry of the delay timer (not on release of the button - which to me, is a little counter-intuitive).

Does that make sense and would that be a good feature request?

Paul.

[SiliconPixel]

Are there any samples of a textbox being populated from a generic (non BSC) xAP message?

I'm trying to get my head around using a text box and wanted to try it from a CTI2.info message sent out by Greg Liming's Asterisk xAP plugin.

This is an example of one of the many messages:

xap-header
{
v=12
hop=1
uid=FFE80003
class=CTI2.info
source=liming.axc.house:vm.default.500
pid=4204
}
Messages
{
readmessages=7
totalmessages=24
type=Voice
}

So I wanted to display both the readmessages and totalmessages.

Can someone please point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Paul.

[SiliconPixel]

I've noticed some odd behaviour with the popup slider on the Joggler. Sometimes the popup will appear even with the briefest of touches and will continue to popup in this way for several touches, then work OK, then start playing up again.

I'm not 100% sure but it seems to happen more after the screen saver has kicked in and been dismissed by touching the screen.

config file based on a simple mod of the basic example - attached as .txt

Anyone seen this?

[Kevin]

Anyway I just also wanted to mention that I'm experiencing random reboots of Joggler with this release. Haven't happened before and I can't pin it down to anything. Seems to happen if I restart xAPFlash a few times when changing xapconfig.xml and checking the results...but it has also happened at other times too.

That's always an awkward one to diagnose.. I haven't seen that here in any reproducable way but I have seen occasional reboots.

One thing I have noticed is that if I have the Joggler set to DHCP then the assigned IP address changes very frequently, (daily ?) which is both annoying and potentially problematic if there is a TCP socket connection in place. I believe the Joggler might reboot itself to re-acquire an IP address. I have set all my Jogglers to static IP now as at one stage two Jogglers were showing with the same IP.

I have this beta running 24/7 on one Joggler and I've never really noticed the Joggler displaying the main menu which it would do after a reboot but maybe it is exaccerbated by config file reloads...

K

[Kevin]

What I think would be more intuitive is if the slider would popup on expiry of the delay timer (not on release of the button - which to me, is a little counter-intuitive).

I'll leave this and the related spurious slider popup Q. mostly to Martyn but essentially there are two ways we determine a 'long press' - the dimmer mode uses one and the slider popup another.

In the slider mode there is no timer running when the button is pressed only a timestamp, and then the release causes a time difference calculation . This way of course you can't initiate any action until the button is released ie you can't popup mid press.

The dimmer works the other way and does initiate a dim cycle after the button is held for a while, but there were some issues with this if the button was pressed many times quickly causing unpredictable results - hence Martyn preferred coding it another way...

K