x-automate - GUI interface for x10-amh

x-automate GUI interface for x10-amh

x-automate is a GUI interface for Aaron Hightower's x10-amh. With this program you can attach icons to your various X10 devices and see them displayed on a toolbar as well as a floorplan of your own. You can also read, write and edit programs to download to the CP-290 controller.

x-automate initially reads the file .x10rc in your home directory. The format of this file is as follows (I've included a sample.set in this distribution): Blank lines and those prefixed with '#' are ignored.

First line defines the audio tool:

Audio: cat "%sound.au" > /dev/audio

This will play an audio file when pushing the icon for the device. Alternately, you can leave this blank for no audio, or put: speak "%sound" for the 'speak' text-to-speech program.

I've tried this with the cat technique, play from sox, and vplay. For vplay you need to do this to suppress the stdout messages:

Audio: vplay "%sound.voc" 2> /dev/null

play from sox is the best of these, as it doesn't send anything to stdout, and it doesn't care about the file format.

Audio: play "%sound.wav"

For any of these techniques using audio files, you'll need three files: 1 each for on, off, and dim, with the filename xxxx-on.xxx, xxxx-off.xxx xxx-dim.xxx. I've included some samples just for demonstration purposes.

The next line defines the floorplan files:

Floors: floor1.xbm,floor2.xbm,floor3.xbm

I would recommend creating the floorplans with xfig with the -e xbm option, and then exporting them to a bitmap format file. Keep in mind your screen size when creating this file if you want the whole floor to be visible on the screen. The remaining lines outline the devices in your home. The format is:

floor,x,y,house,channel,desc,dim,audio-prefix,icon-prefix

1,200,300,A,1,dining room,n,~,ceiling, 1,400,500,A,2,porch,d,~,ceiling 2,300,200,A,3,hall,d,~,ceiling, 2,100,100,A,4,stereo,d,~,ceiling 3,600,800,A,5,3rd floor stairs,d,~,ceiling

Definitions:

Floor: The floor of your home for the floorplan screens x: The x coordinate on the floorplan y: The y coordinate on the floorplan House: The house code assigned to the device. (A-P) Channel: The numerical address assigned to the device (1-16) Desc: The text description for the toolbar. Dimmable: T for true, F for false - determines whether a dim control will be present. Audio-prefix: A ~ means to repeat the text description. This is for the 'speak' program I use for text-to-speech conversion. Otherwise you can specify an audio file for the assigned audio program in the Audio line of the .x10rc file. This will be concencated with 'on' or 'off' for the appropriate pushbutton. Icon-prefix: The first part of the icon name. This will be concencated with 'on' or 'off' for the appropriate pushbutton.

I've include an editing table to simplify the editing of the setup files. If you load a new setup file, or insert or delete rows in the setup editing screen, the 'remote control' display will be updated with your changes. There is no error checking on this data, so if you enter bad info, you'll probably break the program.

Menu:

The menu has the following commands:

File:

The file menu has New, Load, Save, and Save As for two types of files - the Setup File (same as the .x10rc file), and the Schedule File (for downloading to the CP-290), You should create an x10 directory under your home as this is the default location for these files. The setup files have the suffix '.set', the schedule files '.sch'. This menu also has a Display Floorplan item to view your facility's layout with the devices. It also has an Exit item to exit the program.

Edit:

The edit menu has options to edit the setup and schedule currently loaded. These will be displayed in a tabular form where you can edit each field and save the changes.

Utility:

The utility menu has options for :

Query CP-290 - Show Day/Time for the CP-290 Set CP-290 - Set the CP-290's Day/Time to the CPU Day/Time Change Housecode - Set the default housecode for the CP-290 CP-290 Self Test - Run the CP-290 self test and report the results. (I have to admit - I've never gotten good results from this, even from the command line) List CP-290 Contents - List the schedule in the CP-290's memory. This is dumped to the file .x10dump if you want to save the data.

Panic:

This menu implements the 'All Units Off' and 'All Units On' functions for the default house code.

Help:

The help menu has an 'About' which gives the GNU copyleft statement and thanks to those whose previous work contributed to this effort. It also has x-automate Help which displays this text.

Icons: I've included an number of icons with the package. These are 32x32 GIFs, one for the on and off conditions of each device. There is also a duplicate set of 20x20 GIFs which occupy less space on the floorplan. These have an 's' on the end of the filename. Unfortunately, since the X10 system does not let you poll devices for their state, it's up to you to know whether the device is already on or off. If you create new GIFs for icons, I'd welcome getting them to include in the package, as mine leave a bit to be desired (but they're functional).

Floorplans: When you activate 'Display Floorplan' on the File menu, you will be presented with a graphical representaion of your facility with the appropriate device controls located in frames on the floorplan. These frames can be moved by clicking and dragging with the mouse pointer near their perimeter. This will update the x,y coordinates in the setup, which can then be saved. There will be buttons available to display the various floors of your facility, and the controls will be present on each floor according to the floor defined in the setup file. If you change settings in the setup file, the floorplan will not be updated. You need to close and reopen your floorplan.

Schedules: The schedule files follow the format outlined in Aaron Hightower's x10-amh package. I've include an editing table screen to simplify the editing of them. The file format is as follows:

event { devmap 2 daymap 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 housecode a mode today minute 39 hour 23 function dim dimlevel 5 }

event { devmap 2 daymap 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 housecode a mode today minute 0 hour 5 function off }

That's about it, I hope you find this useful in some way. Feedback is always welcome.

Copyright 1996 - Stew Benedict, benedict@netcom.com

Options

Program is dependant on your setup file - you'll probably break it with a bad setup syntax. CP-290 interface is prone to getting confused if you hammer it with rapid commands in succession.