Interesting Windows Automation App - Mayhem

[tmbrown97]

Yesterday I was researching a product for a client - he was looking to replace a command line exporter that's grown over the last 8 years from 2-3 scheduled windows tasks to now over a hundred - so I set out to look for a better task scheduler.
 
One thing I stumbled across was called Mayhem - originally created by someone at Microsoft and released to the open source community, this is an amazingly flexible product that can react to speach recognition, RSS feeds, and just about anything else you can think about - and also has a module for direct Insteon control - I'd be willing to be some creative Cocooners could have a lot of fun with this!  And it's totally free, AND has mobile apps for Windows, Android and iOS!
 
I won't even try to summarize - here's a link to the developer site:
http://makemayhem.com/www/
 
And a list of already-built add-on modules:
http://makemayhem.com/www/Packages/All
 
I'm going to play with it tomorrow for the client... while it won't be for HA purposes it'll give me a feel for how it works... I'd love to hear from others as they come up with ideas for putting this to use - just from reading about it, it looks like it could be a lot of fun!
 
Added bonus if anyone is willing to try their hand at writing Elk or UPB modules ray:

 

[jmorris644]

This looked real promising at first. I downloaded the application and installed the phone add-on. Then I went to download the iOS app and it is not available. Do then I started looking through the help forums and it looks like there has not been much action at all for about a year.
 
I was actually thinking of modifying an interface that I had written to communicate to Haiku Helper but I don't want to be in a position to maintain the main software as well.
 
Thoughts W2P?
 
Joe

 

[Automate]

I worked on interfacing Mayhem to OSA a while back.  Its greatest attribute is how easy it is for the end user to configure and use.  But this ease of use has its price.  The price is that you can't pass parameters to or from the Mayhem software.  This limits what you can do with it compared to something like EventGhost.

 

[damage]

i ran across mayhem a while back and looked at it briefly.  this sample event would have never fired in the 15 months since i first saw it "Automatically update your Facebook status to "I'm rich!" whenever Microsoft stock hits $50 a share." 

 

[etc6849]

Can you really not pass parameters back and forth between PC's and other programs?
 
If that's true, I agree with Automate that EventGhost can do way more and is the way to go.  Maybe I'm missing the point, but what benefit does this program provide over EventGhost (which is already opensource and has a lot more modules)?
 
Off the topic, but:
I built a neat HA module that has full two-way communications between my HA server and EventGhost PCs throughout my home.  It sets up a TCP socket listener in EG and then my HA server connects to it over the network.  The EG or the HA server can then issue commands to trigger events in one another.  Of course, the HA server can connect to as many EG machines as you want too.
http://cocoontech.com/forums/files/file/196-premiseeventghost/

 

[Automate]

Can you really not pass parameters back and forth between PC's and other programs?
 
If that's true, I agree with Automate that EventGhost can do way more and is the way to go.  Maybe I'm missing the point, but what benefit does this program provide over EventGhost (which is already opensource and has a lot more modules)?

 
They get so many people asking the question they set up a page to explain why they designed it that way.
http://eli-white.com/2012/03/why-is-mayhem-so-basic-why-cant-we-make-it-more-complicated/
 
Like I say, Mayhem is really easy for the end user to use.  But I disagree with their argument.  I think parameters could be optional.  If you want to do something simple you don't have to use them.  But why limit the programs usefulness to the power users.

 

[etc6849]

I don't agree with their argument either.  EventGhost is very easy to use and allows you to pass arguments or not pass arguments.  As with any programming language, there's no reason a parameter can't be optional.

 

[Teken]

Don't waste your time the software is pure junk. Our team worked on this product for three months and it never worked. The support from the guys who came out from it is pure sh!t.
 
Teken . . .

 

[tmbrown97]

Hrm OK I guess I was late to the game... guess that's why it's not more popular in these circles!

 

[etc6849]

Teken,  I have to ask:  what was your team attempting to do with Mayhem that took three months?
 
Even the Premise EventGhost module I made only took me about a week, and I work full-time.  
 
It mirrors all of the basic EG features in Premise so users can easily trigger EG events (e.g. turn off display, reboot, start programs, set window state, text to speech, sendkeys, set volume, start screen saver, etc) from within Premise, requiring no programming skills to setup, only a mouse.
 
It also allows users to trigger any Premise action from within EG (e.g. reset an occupancy timer when someone is still using a PC, control lights with hotkeys, use an onscreen menu display to control devices, generically control any devices in your home when a given EG event occurs, etc...).

 

[Teken]

Teken,  I have to ask:  what was your team attempting to do with Mayhem that took three months?
 
Even the Premise EventGhost module I made only took me about a week, and I work full-time.  
 
It mirrors all of the basic EG features in Premise so users can easily trigger EG events (e.g. turn off display, reboot, start programs, set window state, text to speech, sendkeys, set volume, start screen saver, etc) from within Premise, requiring no programming skills to setup, only a mouse.
 
It also allows users to trigger any Premise action from within EG (e.g. reset an occupancy timer when someone is still using a PC, control lights with hotkeys, use an onscreen menu display to control devices, generically control any devices in your home when a given EG event occurs, etc...).

 
All we wanted initially was to connect to the Insteon network. The very fact we could not make it work on 12 separate networks on any level was pretty much the nail in this crappy software. The vendor has even pulled the iOS App from the iTunes store. They provide zero feed back / support on any level.
 
All of the people who have ever left a message in the forum have received zero replies.
 
This pretty much comes into lines with the a typical Microsoft software anyways. Full of bugs, never works as intended, and no real testing prior to public release. I will take a look at your application if you wouldn't mind leaving a link for it here. Our thoughts was to not reinvent the wheel and if this *Mayhem* software actually worked on a basic level we could deploy simple speach control.
 
We have been able to deploy the Siri speach assistance with out incident. But, many clients don't want to have such a complex system at work so we thought this would be one great method to meet that demand.
 
Clearly, all of us were proven wrong!
 
Bottom line: Mayhem is a POS application with zero support, and zero development.
 
Teken . . . 

 

[etc6849]

See post #5 above.