XML as basis for iphone app setup

Developer's Corner General Dev Discussions
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Sorry in advance for the long-winded post… my thoughts are in long form.

I’m trying to squeeze in some time to get this thing started but the remodeling of the house and working long hours on top of that keep pushing it out… Anyway, I was looking for a simple way to have custom configuration to a vera iphone app, short of creating a full remote design app along with the control app, I was thinking of creating a simple XML template that most people could figure out (with some documentation) to fill in a bunch of elements and “viola,” custom control app. I’m basically thinking of doing something organized by tabs, each tab with a row-column layout. N number of rows, 4 columns per tab. Buttons would take 1 row/column, sliders would take a full row. Buttons would toggle states (so no need for individual On and Off buttons) no distinction between a device or a scene (you can make a button do whatever you want…but scene buttons won’t have state feedback, device buttons should change color based on current state. Sliders would have a user definable range (mainly for thermostat control) but default to 0-100. The whole thing would basically just be a UI for http requests.

If I could whip this up in python/pyqt, I’d say I could have a working version soon… but since I’m new to iPhone app dev and my spare time is limited, it may take a couple of months. But I’m hoping to head in the right direction as for as flexibility for end users. My hope is that since each widget is configurable, the user can determine if they want tabs for scenes vs devices, or tabs for rooms, or whatever. There would be a small set of icons to choose from for each element.

I’m hoping to integrate this all with my irTrans, so eventually there would be home theater events available too.
But I don’t have plans for automatically setting up anything, grabbing device ids from vera or whatever. I’m going bare bones.

Thoughts? Is anyone out there doing the same thing? I’ve got tons of projects to finish up and would love to download an existing app but until I see one, I might as well head this direction. Also, if anyone has a better idea, I’d love to hear it.

I’ve got to get back to making the robots.
Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Rick_

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Rick,

This sounds like a really great way to do the iphone app. I’m confused by the mention of Python, though. You’re doing the iPhone app in objective C, right? FYI, the firmware just released (487) has built in support for xml. Try the zwave_status mentioned here: http://wiki.micasaverde.com/index.php/Data_Provider_Catalog_Plugin

We’d definitely be glad to lend you support and assistance, since it would be a great contribution for the community. Send me a private message if you’d like to setup a time to chat on the phone.

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Hi,

Now that I have .491 installed, I tried the http://[YOUR_IP]:3451/data_request?id=zwave_status&output_format=xml but it doesn’t come back as an xml data … am I missing something out here?

If I replace the xml with json, then yes I get a json type output, but if I don’t specify any output_format at all or use the xml one as described above, then I get the same output …
I also wrote some code to go get the data at that url directly (in case safari/firefox would already massage the result before outputting it) but I get the same result.

One last thing, is xml output supposed to be working for all data_request (ie, simple_device_list, scene_detail, …) as well?

thanks,
-j.

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scratch my last message … my firmware wasn’t actually updated which is why xml output wasn’t working.

thanks to Aaron for fixing my current version problem and allowing me to upgrade my fw, I can now get xml output! yay!

-j.

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sorry, the python reference is just stating what I’m working with these days. I haven’t had to put together a makefile in almost 10 years! Since the majority of my work switched from C++ to scripting languages like python I’ve been much happier. I do more workflow, asset management, and data pipeline design than hardcore app development.
But xcode looks like a neat little ide, we’ll see. I’m still working crazy hours but I hope to have time to start this by the end of the month.
When I have something (most likely questions) I’ll post again.

Out of curiosity, what are other people working on? Integrating vera into other systems?

I was going to write a pyqt UI when I decided to just do the iphoneApp. Maybe I’ll end up with both reading from the same xml.
Who knows.

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Hey, I would love to see a pyqt interface, which would go nicely with many touch panels and tablets… Unfortunately I can’t seem to find any time to work on it myself… :frowning: