Subject: From: Date:

Newbie questions Jay Heyl Thu, 26 Aug 1999 00:52:39 -0700

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Hi all,

I'm still fairly new to home automation and very new to ECS.  I've been
slowly getting things configured for my house and I really like the power
of ECS.  I'm still having some trouble getting my mind wrapped around this
different programming paradigm (I'm used to C), but I'm slowly catching on.
 As you might imagine I have some questions.  

1)  The list of items configured in even the lite.cfg file is a little on
the overwhelming side.  After playing around for a while it struck me that
a naming convention for the different categories of items would help to
keep them segregated in the list and might make things a bit easier to
follow.  I started naming all my display/log items "Msg...", my timer items
"Tmr...", etc.  This seems to make it easier to find things in the list.
Is there a generally recognized convention along these lines or does
everyone just go their own way?

2)  Is there a repository for common events/macros?  Maybe there really
won't be that many common things once I get further into this, but at this
point several of the things I've wanted to do seem like they would be
fairly common.  Stuff like fade a light to black over a specified time
period, brighten a light to full on over a specified time period, flash a
light for X minutes with a flash period of Y, etc.  Of course, with all the
tricks in the ECS bag it's entirely possible there are built in commands to
do all these things and I've just overlooked them.  Any enlightenment would
be appreciated.

3)  The web site mentions that "ECS comes with a thoroughly written user's
manual ..."  Is this referring to the HTML file or is a printed manual
included with registration?  Nothing wrong with the HTML, it's just that
for something this complex I like to have printed documentation.  (I still
don't have a HTML reader in my porcelain library.)  I know I could print
out the HTML file, but it would take about two weeks with my ink jet and
would consume about $50 worth of ink.


  -- Jay

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