Re: xAP BSC Questions for a MediaPortal Plugin

["ptgxap" <ptgxap@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi James,

Thanks for the reply!

> In homeseer it sends the devicestatus as the displaytext and because
of
> how things work in home seer some users/devices put html in there so
it
> display nice on the webpage.
Thanks, they way I handle it now is to check if the text looks like
it points to an image, if so I try to display it in MediaPortal
as a state image. Else it is displayed as simple text.


> The only other non-standard additions I've seen are again from
HomeSeer.
> I added a Name= and a Location= keys ( if available). This was to
allow
> apps like Floorplan when they autodetect the BSC devices to
> automatically name them.
That sounds very good, I think I will add code to look for optional
"name" and "location" keys since they may be found with
someone using homeseer (maybe other conduits?) and they fit perfectly
in the same two basic device fields in my plugin :)


> Regarding temperature. They really don't fit in well with BSC and
> because of this work is underway on TSC which is a schema design for
> telemetry devices.
I guess I will wait on specifically adding a temperature
device representation until the TSC schema is available.

Thanks again,
patrick



--- In xap_automation@xxxxxxx, James Traynor <james@...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> DisplayText= is a completely optional element in a BSC message. It is
> there to provide a label/annotation for events mainly for display
> purposes. An example may be a door sensor that would just respond
On/Off
> but could also have a displaytext saying "Door is
closed","Door is
> Open". The important thing is that displaytext is designed for
the
human
> to read where as the state/level/text are there for the applications
to
> read.
> In homeseer it sends the devicestatus as the displaytext and because
of
> how things work in home seer some users/devices put html in there so
it
> display nice on the webpage. That is why you are seeing a url in
there.
> The only other non-standard additions I've seen are again from
HomeSeer.
> I added a Name= and a Location= keys ( if available). This was to
allow
> apps like Floorplan when they autodetect the BSC devices to
> automatically name them.
> Regarding temperature. They really don't fit in well with BSC and
> because of this work is underway on TSC which is a schema design for
> telemetry devices. Its been through a few revisions now so should be
out
> soon. As it stands a temp device in homeseer would just report the
temp
> within the Tex= field. If more data was needed to be sent a seperate
BSC
> device would need to be used for each item of data. So a temperature
> could be sent as:
> :tempA.Temp
> :tempA.MaxTemp
> :tempA.MinTemp
> hardly ideal, hence TSC!
>
> hth, and welcome to the group
>
> James
> ptgxap wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > First post and I already have questions :)
> >
> > I am working on a plugin for
> > MediaPortal(http://www.team-mediaportal.com/)
> > to control xAP BSC devices and had some questions.
> > (Using the xAPFramework btw)
> >
> > I was wondering if there were common conventions
> > used in the BSC messages that are not part of the
> > spec but are used commonly.
> >
> > One example I gathered from reading some posts is that
> > a URL to an image is passed in the "DisplayText" via
> > the HomeSeer plugin. I was going to let users show this
> > image but was not sure what it represented.
> > Is this a "Stateful" image or a general image
representing the device?
> >
> > Another question is temp control.
> > I know the BSC schema does not support a min value
> > but is there a common way this is handled?
> > Again for example, does HomeSeer have temp devices that are
> > xAP enabled via the connector plugin?
> > If so, how are these handled?
> >
> >
> > Thanks for any help!
> > patrick
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>