HouseBot

I posted this in another thread, but thought it was worthwhile to create a topic for discussion...



[HouseBot... short, steep learning curve]

That's an understatement! Isn't there a set of BASIC 'Here's how to...' that someone can create to SHOW how to do this stuff. I'm a programmer and I just don't get it, yet. I think a lot of this has been developed by power users and it's really hard to grasp what is going on here for absolute newbies. I need examples - like the samples in the help, except more. For example, I would like to receive the CarrerID info (like the sample), but I don't want it to go to my cell (that, to me makes no sense at all) - I want it to pop up a window on the screen with the number in a big, bold font - that simple. I want to know how to talk to my CM11A and send commands to the modules - I don't see anything that SHOWS me how to do this - simple stuff! I think SOMEONE should make a full system and post it so we all can look at it ans see just how it all goes together - is this possible???

I agree that more samples would be helpful. We had a few on the old site, but we've not had a chance to get things setup since the transition.



The problem is that it's difficult to "can" an automation setup for samples. Everyone is using different hardware, controlling different equipment in different ways, and displaying/controlling it to meet their own needs.



I think your example of displaying the Caller ID info on a Theme would make a good "canned" sample. I actually have my system setup to do that very same thing. Depending on the state of several modes, the caller ID will also trigger an email to my cell phone. It will also pause my movie (if I'm watching one), bring up the lights and beep a beeper. A sample on displaying the info using a Theme is fairly generic, but all of the other things that I have configured are very specific to my setup and are difficult to share in a generic way.



I threw together a simple sample of displaying caller ID info on a popup panel in a Theme.



To install the sample, drag and drop the .hbx file (make sure the browser doesn't rename it to .zip) onto HouseBot and restart it. After the import, configure the Local Remote software remote to use the Caller ID Sample Theme. Then start the Local Remote from the HouseBot program group. If you have a Caller ID modem setup, it should trigger the popup to display the name of the caller. If you don't have a caller ID modem setup yet, you can manually trigger the sample by setting the Caller ID Info Received property of the Phone Line Device to Yes.