| ECS-L Home Automation and Security Archives |
| Subject: From: Date: | Re: [ECS] ACE Screenshots Ingo Pakleppa Thu, 03 Sep 1998 22:06:15 -0400 |
Dan, (you are the author of ACE, right? Else please ignore this comment) I just noticed one thing in your post to the ECS list: you say that ACE is a 16-bit application that will also work under NT. I haven't tried ACE myself, but noticed that some other people wanted to use DDE between ACE and ECS. Are you aware that under NT, DDE does not work properly between 16-bit and 32-bit applications? Under 95 and presumably 98, it works fine. Ingo At 01:38 PM 9/3/98 -0400, Dan Hoehnen wrote: >Dan, you've just about got it right. But, I will clarify a few points... > >On Thu, 3 Sep 1998, Dan Carrington wrote: > >> Thanks for the pics Michael. Very clean and simple to look at. Nice >> tabs for different menus. Just a refresher for me if you would. Please >> correct me if I am wrong. I am trying to get a better handle on the >> system you are running. >> >> You are running touch screen laptops or screen only computers arround >> the house. They are connected by a common serial line or ethernet. > >I have all my ace clients connect to the ace server via a tcp/ip network >connection. I think Michael does the same. However, a client can also >connect to the server over a serial port. The serial port connection >will still allow ecs to send commands to ace and for ace buttons to send >commands to ecs. But, the automatic item state status reporting is >currently only sent over the network to all clients. So, a client >connected via a serial port would not get these item state updates. You >would have to send them yourself from code you write in your ecs.cfg file. > >I could probably add the ability to send item state info over a serial >port if necessary. > >The network and serial communication is pretty flexible. A command >received on a client or server serial port can be forwarded to another >serial port on either the client or server. Or it can be forwarded to >the server or another client over the network. Likewise, a command >received over the network can be forwarded to a client or server serial >port. > >>You >> run Ace client over windows95 on the touchscreen computers with your >> button setups on them. > >The ace client and server are 16 bit programs and so can run on Win 3.1, >95 or NT (haven't tried it yet on 98). Of course, if you are using ECSW >then you must run the ace server on the same pc as ecsw, so it must be a >Win 95 or NT pc. > >My clients in my house run on 3.1, 95 and NT. My server runs on the same >pc as ECSW on a Win95 pc. > >> You run Ace server on the automation commputer >> running on windows95, which watches listens to ECS and the touchscreen >> computers. ECS and ACE communicate in a windows environment with DDE >> commands. ECS publishes it's states of items to ACE server to be >> displayed on the touchscreens. > >Correct. > >> ACE clients take screen hits and tell >> the server such and such button has been hit. ACE server then sends a >> command to ECS and ECS will fulfill said command. ECS then sends the >> corrected status back again. > >Just a fine point to clear up here. The command(s) for each button are >stored in each client. So, pressing a button actually sends the entire >command to the server for processing, not just the button that was pressed. > >If a command is sent to ecs that changes the state of an item, and >monitoring is enabled for that item, then ecs sends the new state to the >ace server. The ace server then broadcasts the new state to all >clients. So, even if you change the state of an item from one client, all >the other clients will know about it. > >One final point is that you don't need a touchscreen to use ace. A mouse >or other pointing device works just fine. > >Dan >Hoehnen >dhoehnen@infinet.com >He who dies with the most toys, wins! >************************************************************************* >* Home Automation Index: http://www.infinet.com/~dhoehnen/ha/list.html * >* * >* ACE HA Software: http://www.infinet.com/~dhoehnen/software/ace.htm * >* * >* Port16.ocx & Port32.ocx - Give Visual Basic access to I/O ports * >* http://www.infinet.com/~dhoehnen/software/ * >************************************************************************* > +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ingo Pakleppa mailto:ipakleppa@ecs.com | | Microsoft Certified Professional + Internet | | Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer | | Eagle Creek Systems, Inc., P.O.Box 888, Bonsall, CA 92003-0888 | | http://www.ecs.com | | (w) Tel.: 760 731-3251 Fax: 760 731-0054 | +----------------------------------------------------------------+