Re: MSure goes xAP

[Kevin Hawkins <yahoogroupskh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Welcome Per, nice to have you on board.

As you say we are in early days re the adoption of TSC - we do need
some real world implementation feedback so that we know that the schema
meets the purpose it is designed for.   We also of course need more
applications to support it - but in turn they need data sources to test
against. Having your application available will be another helpful
part.  My recommendation would be to continue with TSC as I think you
will find it much more appropriate for your application than BSC.

I hope that developers do add support for TSC and James has just
released a xAP Floorplan build that already does and I have provisional
support in my HomeVision/C-Bus/IHC gateway.  Most control applications
already have the ability to support custom schema so TSC data can be
recovered but more specific support makes this so much tidier.

TSC is derived from BSC and so you may well find that you are able
to support BSC very easily alongside TSC which will maximise existing
support and adoption for your application.  BSC is pervasively supported
by nearly all xAP control applications and controllers.  It is possible
to report sensor data and their measurement units using BSC by abusing a
text device rather than a level device , and this approach has been used
by several developers, but this practice will I hope be superceded by TSC.

From a database logging aspect then it looks like you are already
fairly able to support any schema which is great.  BSC would be one of
the key schema found here.

Re Any major changes to TSC  - I am not aware of any.  I am acutely
aware there is still no formal xAP v1.3 specification out there but as
long as you are aware of the UID change for v1.3 that is essentially the
only aspect that has an impact on TSC.

Re .cmd and .query support within TSC.   My view would be that any
TSC device that has listening ability and codespace should support
.query and any device that has controllable outputs should support .cmd
messages.   The  .query is required for any controller at startup to
synch it's status with your device and also has uses for device
discovery.   Wildcarding is another aspect that you need to consider and
although not so critical in terms of input only devices (as you can
return all sensor information regardless) it is most important that it
works correctly for outputs  .   Partial TSC/BSC implementations only
lead to confusion and frustration from users.

Any questions I'm more than happy to try and help - and I'm sure
others who worked with TSC will chime in too....   TSC is an interactive
(bi-directional) schema which takes a little more care in getting it
just right but the results merit the investment.

Looking forward to the results..

cheers Kevin



per.malmberg@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> Let me introduce myself; the name's Per Malmberg and I'm the author of
MSure (pronounced 'measure'), an application that serves as a foundation to
a Windows-based HA system.
>
> I am happy to announce that MSure is currently in the process of
gaining xAP support, or at least partial support, which is the reason I'm
posting here today.
>
> Although I am aware that the TSC schema wasn't finalized yet, I opted
to use that schema as it seemed to fit quite well with the data I'm
publishing.
>
> However, based on the recent discussions regarding this schema I am
wondering where it is headed, and if I should stay with it. I don't mind
supporting this schema although it is not finalized, but if there are major
changes coming I very much would like to know that so I can 'take a step
back' and wait a while with the release of my xAP Gateway module, or at
least add support for another schema, such as BSC.
>
> Also, the specification isn't clear on all points as to what is
required to be compliant with the schema. For example, are .cmd and .query
mandatory?
>
> That's all for now. You can find the website here: http://www.msure.se and specifics on the xAP
Gateway module here: http://www.msure.se/wiki/index.php5?title=Manual:Modules/xAP_Gateway
>
> Regards,
>
> Per
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
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>



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