Subject: From: Date:

ECS 4.1 BETA Mark Gilmore Thu, 13 May 1999 20:40:51 -0700

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A new ECSB.ZIP (BETA) is now being uploaded:

	NOTE: This info applies only to those who are upgrading ECS.

	BEFORE RUNNING ECS, PLEASE REVIEW THE ENHANCEMENTS BELOW WHICH
	ARE MARKED BY AN ASTERISK ("*"), AND MAKE ANY REQUIRED CHANGES
	AS DESCRIBED. If any pose significant difficulty, email us the
	applicable files and we will gladly make the changes for you.

	NOTE: Due to a consistent lack of customer interest/sales
	over some 2 years, we are no longer maintaing/upgrading
	ECS/DOS.

	PLEASE REVIEW THESE CHANGES EVEN IF YOU ALREADY UPGRADED
	TO 4.1, SINCE SOME MAY HAVE BEEN ADDED RECENTLY.

	The 4.0 Development History is appended below.


	ECS 4.1 Development History
	****************************************************************

	4.1.001 (05/11/99)

*    1)	The A/C-SETTING Type has been renamed to THERMOSTAT-MODE.
	PLEASE MAKE ANY REQUIRED CHANGES TO ECS.CFG.

     2)	Added section to ECS.HTM which describes the RCS TX15 Thermostat
	(X-10 controlled) and the method by which it may be controlled
	with ECS.

*    3)	ECS now supports a "sound-queing" methodology whereas all sound
	output (WAVE and phone) is queued and played back asynchronously
	(Event execution) continues during playback.

     4)	As SPEAK-MESSAGES and PHONE-BOX Items are now processed
	concurrently with Events, the following new States are now
	supported for these Item Types:
		Cancel
		Delete
		New
		Previous
		Next
		Rewind
		Stop
		Pause/Play
		Fast-Forward

	These States may be used to support interactive control of the
	message playback process via ANY input device (such as X-10 keypads).

     5)	The SPEAK-MESSAGES Window now shows the message text
	currently being played/spoken.

*    6)	The State "DO NOT SPEAK" (for SPEAK-MESSAGES) has been changed
to
	"IDLE". PLEASE MAKE ANY REQUIRED CHANGES TO ECS.CFG.

*    7)	ALL "DO NOT PLAY" States (for all applicable Types) have been
	changed to "IDLE". PLEASE MAKE ANY REQUIRED CHANGES TO ECS.CFG.

*    8)	The order of the "Speech Engine" Parameters have been "switched"
	(SWITCH LINES IN ECS.CFG), and are now described as follows:

	File Engine:	Denotes the speech engine to be used in
			converting TTS to .WAV files (for playback
			thru Voice-Interface-C or Phone-Interface-C).
	WAVE Engine:	Identifies the speech engine which will route
			TTS DIRECTLY thru Voice-Interface-C (if any).
			THE USE OF THIS ENGINE IS ONLY REQUIRED FOR
			SLOWER PCS which take signiicant time to convert
			TTS to .WAV files. To test for this delay, create
			this Item WITHOUT a WAVE engine. Then click the
			"TEST" button. If the delay is unnacceptable,
			define a WAVE Engine.
			NOTE: If this engine is defined, rewind/
			fast-forward of TTS is not supported.


*    9)	The States for PHONE-RECORDING-C are now as follows:
		Idle
		Play		(no wait)
		Play->Sp	(no wait)
		Play->Ln	(no wait)
		Play->HS	(no wait)
		Play->Ln/Sp	(no wait)
		Play->VC	(no wait)
		Play/W		(wait)
		Play/W->Sp	(wait)
		Play/W->Ln	(wait)
		Play/W->HS	(wait)
		Play/W->Ln/Sp	(wait)
		Play/W->VC	(wait)
		Playing
		Record
		Record/Aux

*   10)	The States for VOICE-RECORDING-C are now as follows:
		Idle
		Play		(no wait)
		Play->Sp	(no wait)
		Play->PC	(no wait)
		Play->PC:Sp	(no wait)
		Play->PC:Ln	(no wait)
		Play->PC:Ln/Sp	(no wait)
		Play->PC:HS	(no wait)
		Play/W		(wait)
		Play/W->Sp	(wait)
		Play/W->PC	(wait)
		Play/W->PC:Sp	(wait)
		Play/W->PC:Ln	(wait)
		Play/W->PC:Ln/Sp(wait)
		Play/W->PC:HS	(wait)
		Playing
		Record

    11)	The "START" button has been eliminated from the recording
	"child" window (recording now starts immediately when you
	click "REC" or set an Item to RECORD).

    12)	Added new Item Type "EVENT-TRACE": While this Item is set to ON,
	ECS will generate a detailed log of EVERY Event-Line after it
	executes. The log file is EVN.TRC. Included in EVN.TRC are the
	Event-Line's process status (e.g. "DONE", "Ignored", etc) and
	the current States of any referenced Items. This information
	can be helpful in diagnosing Event problems.

	WARNING:Since this logging process greatly "bogs-down"
	Event-processing, this Item should be set/cleared ONLY
	by the Event(s) being tested, and cleared ASAP.

*  13)	SF (using Sound-File Recordings in lieu of TTS) is no longer
	supported, as MS TTS does the job quite well.

*  14)	A new Parameter ("SIGNAL DELAY") has been added to the
	IR-SIGNAL-J Type.
	APPEND THE FOLLOWING LINE TO ANY IR-SIGNAL-J ITEMS:
	|	Signal Delay :0

*  15)	States for the PHONE-ANSWER Type have been renamed as follows:

		Old			New
		-------------------	--------
		ANSWER/NW (no wait)	ANSWER
		ANSWER (wait)		ANSWER/W

	MAKE ANY REQUIRED CHANGES TO ECS.CFG.

*   16)	The Keyboard-Key States are now as follows:
		ACTIVE
		INACTIVE

*   17)	The "RING LEVEL" Parameter of the RING-LEVEL Type has been
	deleted, as it is no longer applicable.
	REMOVE THIS LINE FROM ECS.CFG.

    18)	ECS now speaks text files as one long string, instead of one
	string per line. USE WITH CAUTION, as speaking a long file
	can cause a significant delay when converting it to a .WAV.

*   19)	All DOS-specific Item Types have been eliminated from ECS and
	all documentation:

		Keypad-Screen
		Color-Display
		Print-Configuration
		Clear-Screen
		Screen-Color
		Title-Color
		Header-Color
		Prompt-Color
		Response-Color
		Entry-Color
		Message-Color
		Entry-Screen-Text
		TSR
		Parallel-Byte
		IR-Interface-1A
		IR-Interface-1B
		IR-Interface-1C
		Speech-Interface-A
		Voice-Interface-A
		Voice-Recording-A
		Voice-Interface-B
		Voice-Recording-B
		Phone-Interface-A
		Phone-Recording-A
		Digital-Input-E
		Analog-Input-E

    20)	Detailed instructions have been added to ECS.HTM on how to
	learn/ define signals with the HomeVision (for IR-Signal-J)

    21)	All COM port defs have been removed from SETTINGS.

    22)	States for the VOICE-RECORDING-C Item have been changed as
	follows:
		Old		New
		-----------	---------------
		Record		Record/W (wait)

    23)	States for the PHONE-RECORDING-C Item have been changed as
	follows:
		Old		New
		----------	----------------------
		Record		Record/W     (wait)
		Record/Aux	Record/Aux/W (wait)
				Record       (no wait)
				Record/Aux   (no wait)

    24)	All .WAV recordings are now converted to .RPC's (modem format)
	on completion. This is done to avoid any delay when/if the
	recording is later played thru the modem. Likewise, all .RPC
	are converted to .WAVs on completion. If you happen to have
	two files with the same name (less the extension), ECS will
	report an error.

   25)	A problem has been corrected which caused an erroneous error
	message when ECS attempted to terminate VR.EXE.

   26)	A new button ("HALT") has been added to the Group/Event Screens,
	for use in disabling/enabling event-processing (like Ctrl-A).

   27)	The buttons and fields in the Group/Event/Item windows have
	been reorganized.
-- 
Mark Gilmore
Omnipotence (ECS Home Automation Software)
omnip@usit.net
http://www.usit.com/omnip

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