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1

Developers / Los93soL Android Touch Orbiter

« on: November 29, 2010, 03:36:18 pm »

I've been working on a touch orbiter for Android devices for awhile now and think it's time to start a development thread for it.  This is posted in the development thread because it is not ready for the masses yet, and is undergoing constant development.  I'm posting about it here for those that want to help test and follow the development progress.  Anyone testing needs to be sure you're core is up to date.

There are several key differences between this orbiter and the one from DarrenMason, details are below.  We're all experimenting with these devices and trying to find the right combination to really move forward...

Updated 12/5/10
Features

• Supports Android 1.5 to current
• All strings localized (Need assistance with translations, volunteers please reach out to me)
• HTTPS support, must manually apply patch: http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/226
• 3g Support (Requires that you have outside access to the web admin)
• Orbiter can be created and generated straight from the device
• Update and/or use an existing Orbiter
• Device resolution is detected automatically and added to database if it does not exist
• View orbiter generation status from within the app OR in the status bar
• Touch Orbiter communications utilize HTTP instead of the conventional socket approach
• Keyboard support
• Optional username/password logon
• Configurable refresh rate

Updated 12/1/10
Partially Implemented

• Wifi preference settings

Updated 12/1/10
Known Issues

• Orbiter status bar generation progress can sometimes report complete, but not be reflected when launching the app until manually relaunched
• If your orbiter is deleted, the orbiter app will appear to do nothing on launch

Updated 12/5/10
Planned Features

• Pass phone events back to the core for more advanced mobile orbiter scenarios, for security concerns these should be options and the user should be able to turn off reporting (ie. Wifi On, Wifi Off, Wifi Connected (SSID), Bluetooth On, Bluetooth Off, Bluetooth Paired (Device), GPS On, GPS Off Last Known Location, maybe even as granular as text messages and phone calls from specific people containing a specific message)
• Profile support (ie. Home, Away, Wifi, 3G)
• Shake to refresh
• Widgets (ie: House mode, Scenario Execution from home screen)
• Follow-me support using Bluetooth (Initial tests are promising, server side development required)
• Media browsing/playback on device
• Use device as phone extension in the home

As you can see, I'm already doing some things that haven't been accomplished/tried before with the touch orbiters.  I'm also actively looking to enhance the functionality available to these devices.  I've done some preliminary testing for Follow-me Bluetooth on these devices and proved that it is possible, but there is quite a bit of server-side work that needs to be done to pull it off cleanly.  Merkur2k and I worked on a script in the web admin to do some custom lookups and poll the core for information, this script can continue to be enhanced, or we may use the same method in additional scripts to achieve things like Widgets.  I'm very interested to hear back from the community about your ideas to achieve some of the planned features, and any additional ideas you may have to make this orbiter even better.

You can follow the development of this application in SVN here: http://svn.linuxmce.org/trac.cgi/ticket/902

Latest alpha/beta version will be temporarily hosted on my server until published on the Android Market for debut release

IMPORTANT: MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE THE ABSOLUTE LATEST RELATED CHANGES IN SVN ON YOUR SYSTEM FOR ALPHA/BETA VERSIONS!

To Get Web Admin Changes (On your core)

• mkdir /home/lmce-admin && cd /home/lmce-admin
• svn co http://svn.linuxmce.org/svn/branches/LinuxMCE-0810/web/lmce-admin /home/lmce-admin
• cp /home/lmce-admin/operations/myDevices/orbiters/setupWebOrbiter.php /var/www/lmce-admin/operations/myDevices/orbiters/setupWebOrbiter.php

To Get Required Changes For Keyboard Support (Continued from above instructions)

• cp /home/lmce-admin/operations/myDevices/orbiters/proxySocket.php /var/www/lmce-admin/operations/myDevices/orbiters/proxySocket.php

Updated 12/14/10
Download
http://los93sol.kicks-ass.net/LinuxMCEOrbiter.apk

2

Developers / What is it?

« on: October 28, 2010, 03:57:18 pm »

I understand that it is the mini versions, but what is it exactly?  Was DCERouter rewritten to be free of the PPL for this version?

3

Developers / Do you want to improve the UI but can only create textures? READ HERE!

« on: August 26, 2010, 10:38:37 pm »

Okay, I think we can all agree that UI2 needs some work to say the least.  By now, a lot of you know me from what I've done with a few devices here and there and the Telecom subsystem.  Now I want to work on the UI, but I'm not great at creating textures.  I also know that there are talks of a whole new system for out UI, but that effort has yet to go anywhere so let's fix what we have, let's make it pretty, usable, and functional.  Whoever has ideas and the ability to create the textures post here, reach me by PM, or catch me in the dev channel and let's get cracking.

4

Users / Devices for developers

« on: June 24, 2010, 05:59:51 pm »

Testing is currently being done to use a secure sip secret for the extensions we use for the telecom subsystem.  It is a bit troublesome for us, as developers to ensure a unified experience with devices and their integration with LinuxMCE since we don't have most of the devices for testing.  I have an interest in making sure that as many devices as we can possibly support are plug and play with LinuxMCE and that to streamline the setup of each device as much as we can.

That said, I've been deep into the telecom side for over a month now hammering out fixes and changes to get this subsystem back into shape.  Does anyone have devices that We currently have templates for that they would be willing to donate for this effort?

The plan is, once we have a handle on this with the current devices and features to then pursue support of other phones, but right now I need to get ahold of gear that already has templates.

-Adam

5

Developers / DataLogger Plugin - Energy Monitoring

« on: May 24, 2010, 03:40:33 pm »

I'm working on a new device that logs power usage, and will be making use of/enhancing the DataLogger Plugin to get the data to the user in a meaningful way.  Currently, I can already harvest all the data off the device and have it stored in a few hashes ready to be pumped out as events to the DataLogger Plugin.  I looked at the C++ code for the plugin and see a function ProcessEvent, as I understood it, that should be a command that the device accepts, but checking out the template in the web admin, I do not see any events or commands in the template.  I also searched through Advanced>DCE>Commands and through Events and did not find Process Event anywhere?  Is Process Event generic in the sense that I literally just create a new event and send it to the DataLogger from my device and it falls into the ProcessEvent function by default?

6

Developers / Email/SMS messaging

« on: February 04, 2010, 06:42:25 am »

I wanted to post some progress screenshots of something a coworker and I have been working on.  This is partly derived from the gmail setup script from the wiki, but has been extended to support configuration through the web admin and will let you setup email/sms notifications in Respond to Events.  Well, screenshots are always fun so enjoy.  I'll post a patch for this soon.





There are some common accounts that automate the setup, those are GMail, Hotmail, and Yahoo currently and can easily be extended.


If your provider isn't supported with automatic setup, you can plug in your settings and it will simply work.


You'll notice the device is Mailx, this will be changed to be included in the General Info Plugin once I have a full builder running.  It was originally created as a new device simply because I was not able to compile the General Info Plugin.


Would appreciate some feedback on this.

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Feature requests & roadmap / Notification by email and sms

« on: December 16, 2009, 10:56:35 pm »

Cell phone notifications are nice as long as you have the telecom hardware/service and it is working with LinuxMCE, but other notifications would also be nice to have in addition to and/or instead of.  I think the addition of email and SMS notifications would pretty much make it so anyone could be notified anywhere at anytime.  I imagine this would be a good 'foot wetting' project for someone looking to get involved and contribute.  I'd start with email notifications since the only thing that really needs to happen to translate that into an SMS message is setting it to send to the users phone number @ their carriers email to sms gateway.  Then it could be made a nicer feature by adding carrier dropdowns in the web admin under Cellphone notifications.

Anyone want to pick this up?

8

Users / Which media director

« on: December 07, 2009, 07:17:28 pm »

Which media director is supported currently, if any, that will run Hulu?  I've looked around the wiki at different MD's, but haven't been able to decipher which are supported out of the box and which ones need customizing to get them working.

9

Users / X10 Dimming

« on: November 09, 2009, 07:01:45 pm »

I've got X10 dimmer switches that work fine from the switch and from X10's software, but in LinuxMCE, when I select the light on my floorplan dimming doesn't work properly.  I can turn off and full with no issues, but once the lights are on full I can't select a different level without first turning the light off then stepping up to the percentage I want.  I also noticed that the lights don't really turn up to the percentage I choose, they are much much much dimmer than they should be, for instance I press 50%, but the light is on maybe 10%, and at 90% they are around 20% of the full brightness, but as soon as I hit full they come on full blast.  Anyone else experience this or have any suggestions?

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Developers / TRAC?

« on: November 05, 2009, 02:28:32 pm »

What's going on with trac.linuxmce.org?  I've been trying to reach it all week and can't get there...is someone working on this issue?  I just tried to get to it again to look over how contacts are managed by the web admin to see about extending the functionality, but can't get to it.

11

Feature requests & roadmap / Use Google Contacts

« on: November 03, 2009, 01:45:31 am »

After inputting all my contacts into my core it dawned on me that an easier way of doing this would be to add the ability to pull contacts in from Google Contacts like I do on my Mobile.  This gives me a backup of my contacts and means that whenever a change happens on my Mobile or Google the changes are automatically synced up in all places without ever having to manually edit them in more than one place.  It would be great to have LinuxMCE playing nicely with this so that all devices would be seamless.

12

Installation issues / Compatibility Question HAI Omni LT

« on: October 19, 2009, 09:21:41 pm »

One of the guys at work has an existing home automation setup using the HAI Omni LT panel.  I searched and found a few archived posts which said OmniPro support is there using the Power5401 device template, but I am unclear as to whether or not that information is accurate.  He is looking at installing LinuxMCE to replace his existing setup and knowing his existing hardware is compatible will be a key piece of information to making sure this install is successful.  Any information that you guys have about HAI compatibility is appreciated?  I took a look on my system and the device template definitely does still exist, but I can't tell whether it is limited to just that device or if it covers a broader range of HAI devices such as the interface panel he is running.

13

Users / X10 Problems

« on: August 30, 2009, 09:06:43 pm »

I'm having issues with some lights that have been working without issue no longer working while others still work fine.  I have tried deleting the devices and adding them back again with varied results.  Some of them started working again, others did not.  In the web admin I tried to follow the log to get some more information to determine whether the issue is in my X10 installation or if I am having a problem sending messages to the devices.  I'm leaning towards noise on my lines, but I'd like to rule out that messages may not even be getting sent to the devices before going down that tedious path.

Following the log I can't see any messages sent to any of the devices so I think I'm looking in the wrong place as I'm not seeing messages for the lights that are working either.

14

Developers / Phone Orbiter

« on: August 03, 2009, 07:42:35 pm »

Alright, I'm doing work on the telecom section of LMCE in another thread and came up with the idea to have a phone orbiter using an IVR.  I'd like to discuss this a bit as I don't see it as something that people would want to use to control everything in their house, but more of a thing where you are in a remote location and in a pinch.  I think we'd need to create a module for asterisk to do this properly.  The module will need to be able to send messages to LMCE and generate an IVR by getting scenarios from the database.  Obviously you would want to have the IVR masked in a seperate extension where you would need to use your pin code to access the orbiter so that would cover the process of choosing a user.  So the structure could go something like

Room
-Lighting
-Media
-Telecom
-Security
--List scenarios for the selected category and execute the selected scenario

Can I get some feedback on this idea and development advice?  I need to solve some other issues regarding the upgrade of FreePBX before I'm ready to dig into this too deeply, but I'd like some advice on moving forward.  I think it can be done entirely with an asterisk module without the need to modify any LMCE code to support the feature.

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Developers / Upgrading Asterisk

« on: August 02, 2009, 07:33:19 pm »

I'm looking into upgrading Asterisk as the version we are currently using is extremely dated.  I am having trouble understanding what the issue with this is as looking through the source it doesn't look like there is really much customization to asterisk's source that even needed to be done, but was done for compiling issues, etc.  Can someone with more experience in LMCE's source provide a bit of insight as to what the issues are as it looks fairly straightforward, but surely this would have been done by someone else by now if it was really that easy.