For Windows users who may have forgotten about the “Active Desktop” feature, I’ve put it to use as follows:
From any Windows (95/98/Me/XP) computer connected to your home network…
Right-click the Windows Desktop
Choose Properties
Click ‘Desktop’ tab
Click ‘Customize Desktop’ button
On the next pane, click the ‘Web’ tab
Click ‘New…’ button
In the ‘Location:’ field, enter http://[VeraIPaddress]
Click OK and acknowledge any prompts which follow
Click OK to close any open dialogues
Vera’s Dashboard should appear within a resizeable window on your Desktop. Enjoy!
NOTE: This method does not appear to work using FindVera.com or FindVera.com/mobile, etc., due to certain limitations with Active Desktop’s interaction with HTTPS domains.
I took this screenshot (see attached) this morning, to demonstrate how I’ve added Vera as an “Active Desktop” item. I normally keep it sized smaller than this, because I can scroll vertically/horizontally to control whatever device I want. But in this case, I enlarged the embedded pane so you could get a sense of how it looks relative to the Windows Desktop itself.
Hypothetically, one could set this pane to be (a) on a second monitor, or (b) cover the entire background, etc. Users of virtual desktop software, such as Dexpot 1.4, could even dedicate one ‘screen’ to this Vera pane.
Granted, it would look even better if the pane’s content were, say, the iPhone interface that’s presented via http://findvera.com/mobile, but (so far) I cannot get that to appear within an Active Desktop item, despite several attempts.
Humm, very interesting. I could eliminate the sql database I use on air4vera and let the user type in the url just like in a browser and have the compact tree interface I designed. See below.