Introducing CQC 5.0

[pete_c]

The only thing I don't like about home automation and AV is that it is wrapped up in the "relentless pursuit of career and worldly possessions."
 
It isn't really. 
 
You are here on Cocoontech and can say just ask about anything and you will increase your knowledge base about this stuff.
 
And yes you can make your system invisible, seamless and tidy.   Just ask your questions. 
 
Many folks here have done that and written about it. 
 
Dean is passionate about his software, he is always listening here and will always answer any of your questions.
 
Baby steps.
 
I enjoy tinkering more than using what I have too.
 
I have always wanted to know what makes things tick.   Another hobby of sorts. 

 

[hobby_boy_9122]

Dean -
 
I agree with the others that the new video is awesome. I've been lurking for years, learning and waiting to begin construction of our new home and have just broken ground so I'll be looking with anticipation to 5.0 ! I've spent a good part of the last year doing research into my future HA system and had pretty much decided on HAI OP II, RadioRa2, HiFi 2 with CQC running on top... I'm now sure! Thanks for being you.

 

[Dean Roddey]

So here's a big update of the video. Hopefully this one looks a lot nicer and is more engaging with more animations and a better look.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQKu1lndLzM

 

[automatedux]

Dean, I think your attention to the marketing of CQC will be rewarded.  The video is solid and I think it should go on your homepage.  

 

[Dean Roddey]

The web site is going to be redone for 5.0, and it'll get added then. As much as as I hate to do the 'me, too' thing, I'm going to get the web site looking more modern. Personally I think almost every web site out there looks about the same, because they all seem to end up with the same look. The trend now seems to be the 'one massive page that you scroll down through for a week' type thing. 

 

[Deane Johnson]

The web site is going to be redone for 5.0, and it'll get added then. As much as as I hate to do the 'me, too' thing, I'm going to get the web site looking more modern. Personally I think almost every web site out there looks about the same, because they all seem to end up with the same look. The trend now seems to be the 'one massive page that you scroll down through for a week' type thing. 

So true!

 

[automatedux]

The web site is going to be redone for 5.0, and it'll get added then. As much as as I hate to do the 'me, too' thing, I'm going to get the web site looking more modern. Personally I think almost every web site out there looks about the same, because they all seem to end up with the same look. The trend now seems to be the 'one massive page that you scroll down through for a week' type thing. 

 
A couple of reasons why they have moved in that direction:

• Users don't read they scan and they don't use navigation unless they can't find something. 
• Scroll the predominant way to communicate more detail over time, brought in by the ease of scroll on mobile devices
• Just like UI design the move toward content over chrome is a modernization.  When content is prioritized over decoration, you are left with images and text that communicate your ideas

Which brings me to your UI tool.  I haven't gotten a chance to use it yet, but would you ever consider supporting HTML for interfaces?

 

[Dean Roddey]

The far and away dominant feature for 5.1 is going to be HTML support. We won't get rif of our Windows viewer because it will always be vastly more powerful than HTML. But we want to support HTML as an option, particularly for portable, non-Windows devices. 
 
The first step in 5.1 will almost certainly be a fixed function HTML client that supports our auto-generation system, i.e. it will use the room configuration data that the auto-generation system uses and automatically create a user interface based on that information. 
 
The next step after that can go a couple different ways and we aren't completely settled on it. 
 
1. We could provide a system where we auto-translate our interface templates to XML on the fly
2. We create a javascript engine that exposes CQC functionality in such a way that you can use whatever HTML design tool you want to create custom HTML clients.
 
#1 would be nice in that you have one place to design interfaces. But, OTOH, the needs of a Windows client and portable client aren't necessarily the same, and HTML will never support all of the rich functionality that our IV does, so you would still likely end up doing multiple designs probably.
#2 would have the limitation of doing different designs for the IV vs. non-IV clients, but would allow for native development of non-IV clients. If you end up having to do separates anyway due to differing requirements for different types of devices, this probably makes the most sense.
 
 
Interestingly, once we have an HTML scheme in place, this will suddenly free our Windows IV up in a way that it has not been before. Currently it is highly constrained because we support iOS/Android via our RIVA system, which effectively remotes the graphical and user input operations in an remote desktop sort of way. So the IV can't stray from what those RIVA clients understand. Once we can replace them with HTML, then the IV is freed up to go off in whatever direction it wants. My leaning is that it would move to using the DirectX graphics engine, which would open it up to serious coolbeans.

 

[Dean Roddey]

I should say that you've always been able to do HTML clients yourself. The only difference is that, right now, you have to provide the code on the CQC web server side to support it, and write the javascript yourself. Neither of those is crazy difficult for simpler stuff. But having a nice javascript engine and a fast and efficient C++ handlers on the web server side to support it would make things vastly easier.
 
But, just for the record, here's a demonstration I did the other day. It creates a web browser based metadata display. So you can have it monitor any CQC standard media renderer and show that renderer's current metadata.
 
http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/showthread.php?t=12644
 
Here's the little demo video I did to show it working, if you don't want to read the thread that explains how it was done. It is based on Websockets so it's quite responsive. It wouldn't be a terribly big deal to expand it to support transport and volume control which would make it a little media client.
 
http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/PostImages/5_0Previews/htmlmeta.mp4