xlobby with ELK-M1

[tomtnt]

sorry for the duplicate forum posts, but I love this plugin!

I think this plugin deserves its own thread. I messed around with demo of CQC and Mainlobby but they were overkill for what I needed to do: make multiple touchpad and computer base control of the ELK. For my limited needs, it did not make any sense to pay that much money.

Then drewloch posted this awesome program for use with XLOBBY. both XLOBBY and the elk plugin are 100% free - they work great! I now have multiple client/touchpad control of the elk all over the house and the amazing webclient is just awesome which are totally skinnable.

Setting up xlobby is a bit of a chore, but wasn't much more difficult than trying to learn CQC or mainlobby.

here's the link:

http://www.xlobby.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4701

I just can't get over that it's FREE!

 

[Smarty]

I fully agree.

Xlobby and the Elk are even nicer when you add in PowerHome. The "Xsend" Xrecieve" Xlobby plugin works well to toggle button colors or button text.

 

[tomtnt]

I fully agree.

Xlobby and the Elk are even nicer when you add in PowerHome. The "Xsend" Xrecieve" Xlobby plugin works well to toggle button colors or button text.

Hi smarty:

can you describe how to change a text's color depending on the state?

IE:

ZONE 1 - i want it to turn RED when zone1 is open as reported by the ELK. How would I use xsend/xreceive to do this?

FOYER LIGHTS - How would i get those letters to turn yellow when the X10 is triggered either at the switch or by the ELK?

thanks

 

[upstatemike]

I fully agree.

Xlobby and the Elk are even nicer when you add in PowerHome.  The "Xsend" Xrecieve" Xlobby plugin works well to toggle button colors or button text.

How does PowerHome get tied in through Xlobby? Is there a PowerHome plugin as well?

 

[IVB]

agreed, i think xLobby is an awesome program, and for anyone who doesn't need the full network-distributable architecture, should be at the absolute top of the download/checkout list.

There's also a Sony777 plugin and many others for xLobby, so it's got lots of potential.

 

[damage]

i've been playing w/ xlobby for a couple weeks right now and it works really well. i'm using xAP to get data from my timecommander+/starCOM into xlobby. in the other direction, i'm using activeX scripts to call starCOM. so far, i've added full control of x10, hvac & my security cams. there are a few things i'd like in the xAP plugin that would make xlobby more usable for me, but i've been working around it so far. i hope at some point to add a page on my website detailing what i've done...

 

[damage]

I fully agree.

Xlobby and the Elk are even nicer when you add in PowerHome. The "Xsend" Xrecieve" Xlobby plugin works well to toggle button colors or button text.

How does PowerHome get tied in through Xlobby? Is there a PowerHome plugin as well?

here's some info on integrating powerhome & xlobby

http://mannyman.googlepages.com/part12

 

[Smarty]

Tomtnt,
The "Xsend/Xrecieve" Xlobby plugin described in the "mannyman" link below will allow you to change button text, button state or just about anything else that you can do through an Xlobby command.

Note: to see what things are possible, hit "F2" to get into Xlobby set up and then click on "Events". Then in the "Command" window, click on "Xlobby" to see what choices you have to manipulate the Xlobby text/buttons/etc.

Unfortunatley with the Xlobby Elk plugin, you CANNOT directly change button colors (or floor plan zones). For each zone you can see a "generic" visual status indicator and/or the corresponding text (zone status). If you wanted to, you could send the zone status to PH (maybe save them to global varaiables) and then have PH send Xlobby this information (via Xsend/Xrecieve). I have NOT done this, because I am waiting for PH to support the Elk (which is coming...), and I think I think this method is a bit to cumbersome.


In preparation for PH to do this (still waiting), this is how I made up my zone layout:
What I did to set up my floor plan zones was use Photoshop to clean up my full floor plan, then I added layers for each zone. Each layer would only have the single zone colored in. I would then save each layer/zone seperately, and then give each saved zone 3 color varaitions (red=violated, green=OK, yellow=trouble).

After moving these saved .PNG files into the Xlobby/Skins/buttons directory, you first make a button that is the "cleaned-up" overall floorplan. You then add the "zones" on top of this. If you saved them properly from Photoshop, all the images should have the exact same size, and each zone should lay nicely where you had it layered in Photoshop.

To make this work, each "zone" button must have 3 states set (ok, trouble, and violated). Use the Pause/Break key to enter Xlobby's screen editor. In there states can be set up (read the documentaion found on the Xlobby.com site).

Now, the Xsend/Xrecieve could toggle the state of the "zones/buttons" (but not directly from the Elk plugin).

Hope this helps some!!!