CQC 1.4 is released

[Steve]

Which all comes down to why don't you just have a series of dialogs or wizards so people don't have to learn any coding! I think it is great that there is all that power there, but honestly I have so much to do the last thing I want is to have to learn any language or write any code. To be competitive with HS, HAL, etc, there needs to be a simple user interface to the events. Then, the real power users can use code to get more powerful if needed. Just like you can do actions in the dialogs and use macros if needed. Need same thing for events.

 

[Dean Roddey]

We'll look at that in a subsequent release. We just can't hold up the 1.5 release any longer because it has too much stuff that people are waiting for. Doing a really good set of configuration dialogs for something this open ended would be time consuming. In the meantime, given how easy it'll be to do simple filters, which most will be, it won't be too hard to just cut and paste an example and change the field name.

 

[Steve]

I agree with the logic, just want to make sure it was still being considered. I too can't wait for 1.5 and the improved Elk driver shortly thereafter.

 

[Squintz]

I'll get my way one day.

 

[Dean Roddey]

I'm doing system testing for 1.5 now, and just used my first real event driven action just a bit ago, in my own personal system. Pretty neat. I set it up to watch for a power on of the Lexicon and power up the home theater in response. It's too bad that I don't have more stuff that I could put the event system to use on, but for me it's fairly limited because of my particular setup. I guess that's why it never seemed to be a paritcularly important feature to me in the early days. I can definitely see though how powerful it could be if you had the setup to make use of it.

I'll get more use out of it post-1.5 as we get support in place for some DVD changers, and I implement an on-disk music repository in my own system. Then I'll be able to get events like lowering the lights at the start a movie, or sequencing some trailers before the movie, raising the lights as the last chapter of the title starts (should be the credits), and so forth. But I don't have any motion detectors or security sensors and I don't have HVAC under control because I really don't have any HVAC (just a baseboard heater, where barely gets used in this climate.)

But anyway, it's there and it work well, and you can do very specific filtering. The response is pretty instantaneous. It is a network broadcast based mechanism so it is not 100% guaranteed that the event will be seen by every listener on the network, though it's very unlikely that they won't as long as the network is functioning properly and it's not being pushed to near its limits.

 

[Dean Roddey]

A first CQC 1.5 beta is now posted. If you would like access to it, let me know at [email protected]. Temporary web/docs are at:

http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/Beta15Web/index.htm

It's not 100% updated to reflect the new situation, but pretty close. Some new drivers don't have doc pages yet. Under the Learn tab in the Technical Documents section are new documents are on the new event system and web server.

 

[Dean Roddey]

A 3rd beta of 1.5 (1.5.3 as you might guess ) is now posted. There've been no more than smallish problems reported with 1.5 so far, and most of those have been taken care of, so this beta is available for open consumption if you are interested in trying it.

The web site/docs for this new beta version are available via the link in the previous post above. The best way to get into CQC, if you are new to it, is to go into the Try/Buy tab of the web site, on the Try It page, download the installer. Then go to the Learn tab and go through the Quick Tutorial, and the Using CQC sections. Either order is fine, depending on whether you want the hands on part of the overview part first.

The docs are trailing a little behind the actual product right now, but not too far. I'll be getting them caught up over the next few days. There's not likely to be anything but small fixes and some driver updates between now and the official release.

So give it a try. For you HS users looking for an alternative, the event system and web server are there now, which were primary roadblocks for many of you before. Under the Learn tab there are technical documents on the web server and event system if you want more details after going through the tutorial and Using CQC stuff.

 

[justonemore]

Thinking I might just give this a try Dean. After Christmas of course. Lots and lots of running around to do, and so little time remaining.

 

[Dean Roddey]

We'll leave a light on for ya By then the blessed version (note the very clever holiday-oriented play on words there, that's why I get paid the big bucks) of 1.5 will be out by Xmas time, and we'll be heading towards 1.6.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Well 1.5.3 was ill fated and had a short life. An error was introduced into the image scaling system, so we need to fix that and put up a new beta. Normally we don't do releases this quick, but the potential visual defects it would have been annoying when they showed up, and a few other small but useful fixes had gone in, as well as an important fix in the Elk M1 driver, so I went ahead and uploaded 1.5.4. I appologize for any inconvenience that might have caused.

 

[Dean Roddey]

BTW, here is a kind of grab bag example of some of the fancy new text effects that 1.5 allows you to do:

http://charmedquark.com/Web2/Downloads/MiscImages/TextFX.png

You can do gradient text, reflects, and blurs. It really makes a huge difference in the ability to create eye candy interfaces.

 

[Dean Roddey]

And there's a 1.5.5 up there now. This seems likely to be the penultimate beta and that the official release will come next, unless someone discovers something in the meantime.

 

[Dean Roddey]

As always in the pre-release testing phase, I start building up yet another scenario just so that I have to go through all the steps of building a real world system, so as to catch bugs. I was starting to work on a new set of interfaces for my own system, taking advantage of some of the nice new graphical text effects 1.5 provides. I think it's coming out pretty darned nice.

http://charmedquark.com/Web2/Downloads/Mis.../BnGSample2.jpg

Before, you could have done some of this stuff, by drawing the text into the images, but you couldn't do dynamic stuff, like the clock for instance. And it was a lot more of a pain to change since it meant updating an image, exporting it to PNG, cropping it correctly, and importing it into CQC. Now you can just type in the text and select a desired special effect. Even when it's pretty subtle, like the gradient fill on the text in the menu along the bottom, it really makes a difference.