RE: xPL announcement/description protocol -- was xPLDiag

["John B" <home-automation@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Gerry,

The concept sounds good - I like the idea of extending hbeat/app schemas
rather than creating a new one.

> There would be more to discuss on this including what items
> specifically should be included  with a "request_details"
(or
> at least what is the menu of known items that can be used by
> a device -- devices may reply with a subset of those items)

Why not use the vendor XML files for the more verbose information.
E.g. for Mal's W800 app, things like the version number could be
included in the hbeat.app messages, but things like the description, URL
etc. could be stored in Mal's XML document.

That way all a client needs to do is cross-reference the vendor-device
part of the source against the XML file to grab a whole load of
information - and there's no impact on the network in terms of huge xPL
messages going round.

There is already a well-defined common storage location for vendor XML
files on Windows systems - I see no reason why we couldn't develop
something similar for other platforms, as the XML files seem like an
ideal place to store textual information about a device that isn't going
to change often.

Thoughts?

Regards,

John