Thoughts on designing a Sage UI w/CQC stuff

[IVB]

(I posted this in the CQC forum, but i'll cross-post here in case the non-CQC crowd has some good ideas about this.)

Now that the HDExtender is out, I'd love to be able to just have the Extender control some basic CQC stuff in the MBR, without resorting to a UMPC in that room.

I got on Beelzerob's queue to integrate Sage w/CQC via the Sage side, but I need to give him some guidance as to what we'd want to control from within a Sage skin, and what a UMPC would be best for.

I just mocked up the following screens, please note that I have no idea if any of this is possible so this may not be what's created in the end. But, it's easier for Beelzerob to research integration if I give him some specific areas to look into.

What do y'all think? Is this the right way to think of this? Due to the diversity of people's setups and equipment list, I don't think we have any choice but to go with a device-specific path. I also have no idea how Beelzerob is going to be able to tell which of these a given user even has installed, so this is really just a whiteboard exercise at this point.

I stopped after the main screen as I didn't want to waste too much time on something that may not be viable.

 

[Mike]

Nice idea. I have given some similar thought as I use sage throughout the house and I have not gotten to playing with CQC yet.

Being able to, say select a movie from a set of covers using a tablet or the like and have it change the settings would be cool.

 

[CollinR]

1st the major bonus would be you instantly have UMPC functionality with touch support through placeshifter.

Further you could use the client or placeshifter to make CQC available to linux and Mac.


However I must say I can do what is shown right now through Dynamic Menus plugin and EventGhost, what you really need is something much more involved. You might look at the HAL plugin to see whats already been done, those screens would be a good start. IIRC I think it had sliders for thermostats and whatnot, really there is no limit.

 

[IVB]

However I must say I can do what is shown right now through Dynamic Menus plugin and EventGhost, what you really need is something much more involved. You might look at the HAL plugin to see whats already been done, those screens would be a good start. IIRC I think it had sliders for thermostats and whatnot, really there is no limit.

Sorry, not clueing in to what you mean. I already looked at the HAL screenshots, those are below, that's what i used to give me some ideas. I didn't put in the bottom screens that would use the sliders/etc, as I don't yet know what Beelzerob will be able to do. He'll probably end up needing to use the XML gateway for this, and as he doesn't know that yet, we're really just guessing. And, I dunno how he'll be able to build out the device list.

BTW, the HAL plugin doesn't support thermo's, but you're right - i should add that to the list of stuff to do on that screen.

 

[beelzerob]

Well, there's 2 major unknowns....the Sage UI stuff, and the XML gateway. From what I understand about what they do, they would seem to be flexible enough to be workable together. I've just got to start playing around with it. Certainly given what HAL appears able to do, and assuming that they didn't get some kind of proprietary support from Sage themselves, then all of the same tools would be available to me. And having not even used the XML gateway, from what I understand, it should do everything I'd want it to do.

We'll see.

 

[IVB]

Ok, Ok, I get it - this may cost me a little $$ to have the driver built

HAL didn't get proprietary support from Sage, but even if they did, I had contacted Jeff & Dan Kardatzke (owners) and got them psyched up on this a few months back so we could get the same dealio.

I'm not sweating the ability of the CQC XML gateway - given that it's how the DotNetViewer works, all that's left is, well, for you to learn it

As far as the sage UI, I did notice the HAL screens are a little static & complex, so the "config file with just the drivers & fields you want" idea toymaster had on the CQC forums might be the trick for those of us looking to keep things simple.

BTW, as long as i'm creating work for you, see if we can have multiple "config files" - that way we could create a different STV per room, so i could have "concerto driver, zone3" for the MBR extender, "concerto driver, zone5" for the Kitchen extender, etc.