monthly progress update
monthly progress update
This month I was rather lazy but managed to make some progress anyway:
Finished the HTTP interface between the Server and the clients, together with simple authentication. Mac client can now work not only on the LAN with direct SQL connection, but also from anyplace in the world connected to the internet. Tested from Poland so far ;)
Pictures can be stored on the server, cached on the Mac client and displayed in the Tree Location view. Just a gimmick but could be useful, and the same piece of code is used to handle pictures on the Overview tab.
Added Scenarios for Timers. Now with one click you can enable / disable part of schedule, i.e. switch the guest bedroom on or switch the whole house (but the fishtank) off when you’re away for the weekend.
Moved away from the old web-based log displayed in a WebView and implemented it in a proper NSTableView, finally.
New System Connector, this is a second one after Arduino Connector. It’s not a hardware driver this time, but rather a virtual one which can talk to other Mac software. It can Growl, speak, send Skype messages and SMS, announce weather for the day (courtesy of Weather.com), execute SQL scripts (which themselves can use System Connector to execute Actions...), and last but not least execute Apple Script (i.e. you can run your iTunes from ChattyHome). The Apple Script command alone can achieve majority of the other commands which I implemented in the System Connector, but I have them anyway and will probably continue to add new ones for the sake of simplicity of the implementation.
Due to the major rewrite of the interface and the Overview tab the web client is now outdated and broken so I temporarily took it offline. With the Mac client and iPhone client being able to work over HTTP the web client is kind of superfluous anyway, but then my day job laptop is a bloody Dell and also I appreciate that many people would want to be able to access the system from a PC, so getting the web client fixed is pretty high on my TODO list.
Monday, 25 October 2010