J9 Automation Engine - Version 0.19

[johnnynine]

Version 0.19 is now available for download.

This is a fairly large release with many new features so this list shows just the major new features.

For a complete list of changes, please review the Change History.

Scenes
A scene is a reusable list of actions that can be run from multiple rules and/or touch screen builder events. For example you could create a 'Thermostat Comfort Mode' scene that sets your thermostats. You could then create a rule to run the scene when the security system is disarmed, another rule that runs at 4:30pm and you could create a touch screen button to run the scene. If you want to change a scene's action list you only need to change the scene and not any of the rules or touch screen events which run the scene.

Major Media Browser Enhancements
* It now supports a new List display mode as well as the previous tile display mode.
* A new Search feature finds partial artist, album, and title matching and shows all the related titles.
* Press and Hold on an Artist, Album, or Genre to display all the songs for the item.
* Changing the grouping now respects the current search text.

New Text Entry and Virtual Keyboard touch screen controls
* Added new Text Entry control.
* Added skinnable and localizable full on-screen keyboard and numeric on-screen keyboard which are used by the new Text Entry control.

Action List Editor
The Action List Editor now supports copy and paste.

Touch Screen Builder
* Added Lock Controls feature to prevent the mouse from moving or resizing any controls.
* When the right click context menu is displayed over more than one control, the non-top controls will be selectable from the menu.
* The Image Browser now opens to the related image path/url or to the most recently visited path if none.
* The Controls menu is now sorted alphabetically.
* The IP Camera control can now have a border.

New Device Support
* Tivo Series 3 DVR
* Nuvo Essentia E6D

Device Enhancements
* Added Insteon Group On/Off/Dim/Bright commands.

See the change history for fixes as well.


Thanks for all the great user feedback and user provided device drivers. If you are a .net software developer and are interested in a free software license, please see the Device Driver Development Incentive Program.

Johnny

 

[johnnynine]

Version 0.19.0.1 is now available for download.

This quick release fixes issues that have been reported in v0.19 as well as adding a few new features.

System Media Player
* Fixed: The System Media Player would clear the artist, album and title info if the media file did not contain cover art.
* Fixed: The System Media Player did not support folder.jpg cover art files.

Music Media Library
* Added TrackCount, AlbumCount, ArtistCount, GenreCount, and PlaylistCount properties.
* Now displays playlist album art in the Media Browser.

System Media Player
* Now supports M3U and WPL playlist files.

Touch Screen Viewer
* Fixed: Text macros no longer show xml encoded text such as ' for an apostrophe.
* Fixed: When in fullscreen mode loading a new touch screen with the Loader Button (or script) no longer cuts off the edge of the touch screen.
* The Media Browser control now shows music playlist album art.
* The Paged List control now supports displaying a background image for each item and a selected item background image.

Action List Editor
* Fixed: The Action List Editor did not properly show numbered list values.

Thanks,
Johnny

 

[johnnynine]

Version 0.19.0.2 has been released. This quick release improves the usability and appearance of some of the touch screen controls and fixes a couple minor issues.

Paged List Touch Screen Control
* Added a pressed item image to the Paged List control.
* The Paged List control's item height and initial values can now be set using the UI.
* Separator lines can optionally be shown between each Paged List control item.
* When using the scripting language the list items can now be set from a Dictionary object.
* Fixed: Removing a Paged List control's item background would cause an error when editing the control later.

Web Browser Touch Screen Control
* The Web Browser control can now have it's scroll bars hidden.

Image List Touch Screen Control
* All the images can now be automatically set from a chosen folder.

Action List Editor
* Fixed: Deleting an action list item and immediately clicking the up or down toolbar buttons would cause an error.

Johnny

 

[dutchyn]

What is the licensing/pricing model for this product? I gather from other posts that licenses expire, but I can't find anything about pricing and licensing here or on the J9 website. Before I standardize on a top-level HA system (Premise, J9, Indigo, ...), I would like to know what the future plans are.

 

[johnnynine]

What is the licensing/pricing model for this product? I gather from other posts that licenses expire, but I can't find anything about pricing and licensing here or on the J9 website. Before I standardize on a top-level HA system (Premise, J9, Indigo, ...), I would like to know what the future plans are.

Chris,

The current beta versions do have an expiration because in the past we have released about one major beta version per month and this encourages users to move up to the latest version to ensure accurate feature requests and bug reports.

When version 1.0 is released a 30 day trial version will be available. Details on the version 1.0 licensing/pricing are not yet available and will be announced at the time of the release.

We are currently promoting the Device Driver Development Incentive Program which offers a free software license to version 1.0. We are also offering a free license for users who work with us to create a complete touch screen interface.

Thank you for your interest,
Johnny

 

[johnnynine]

Version 0.19.0.3 has been released. This ultra quick release fixes an issue in the ACT TI103 and provides a much requested feature.

If you don't need either of these then there is no need to upgrade.

* The Devices window now shows the names for property array elements (such as each light's name).
* Fixed: The ACT TI103 LightNames property caused an error which could be seen in the device properties and when using the action list editor or property binding.

Johnny

 

[johnnynine]

Great News!

The J9AE TouchScreenViewerLite.exe application runs on Linux with mono installed.

From a linux terminal command like just enter:

mono TouchScreenViewerLite.exe

This brings the supported viewer platforms up to:

* Windows OS
* iPhone/iPod/iPad
* PocketPC / Windows CE5+
* Linux

PS: We are close to having it run on a Mac as well.

Johnny

 

[roussell]

Great work Johnny! As an FYI, Mono apps run fine on an Intel Mac. Just download Mono for the Mac platform and run the app as you would in Linux. Are you planning to have the engine "mono-able" too or just the viewer?

Terry

 

[johnnynine]

Great work Johnny! As an FYI, Mono apps run fine on an Intel Mac. Just download Mono for the Mac platform and run the app as you would in Linux.

Terry, unfortunately all mono platforms are not created equally. The app has been tested on Mac OSX and does have some quirks. We are working with Novell to resolve these. For example if you run it on a Mac you must enter the username, password, and server address from the command line because the sign-in window does not behave as expected (it works fine on Linux).

Are you planning to have the engine "mono-able" too or just the viewer?

At this time the Touch Screen Viewer application is planned for cross-platform support and not the backend engine.

Johnny

 

[politics123]

Hey Johnny --

Whatever happened to 1-wire support. Did that fall off the supported devices list?

 

[johnnynine]

Hey Johnny --

Whatever happened to 1-wire support. Did that fall off the supported devices list?

We did work some on a one-wire driver but other feature had a higher priority. We plan to take another look at one wire in the future, which will require some education on how it all fits together.

If anyone is interested I'd be happy to share the limited source code that we have for the driver we started.

Johnny

 

[johnnynine]

Version 0.19.0.4 has been released. This update release adds a few user requested features and extends the beta license period since it was about to expire.

* Added event argument info to the rule event description.
* The rules grid now shows the device display name.
* Added a multi-room audio interface (IMultiroomAudio) to the Driver Development API for existing drivers and the upcoming Russound driver.
* The Nuvo Grand Concerto driver now shows zone and source names when using property binding.
* The Anthem driver now implements the IMultiroomAudio interface, which required some of the method names to change (breaking changes).
* All drivers have been digitally signed.
* Fixed: An error would occur when a rule was saved while the selected device in the devices window was for the saved rule's event then the user tried to invoke a method on the device.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback.

Johnny