Control Pages - Oh so many options and questions....

Posted on
Thu Feb 01, 2018 4:55 pm
Fxguy offline
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Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Control Pages - Oh so many options and questions....

So I've been reading and reading and reading and researching about control pages the past few days and my head is spinning. I have been able to create a control page to view my security camera with controls to pan and tilt the camera.

As my head is swirling a couple of questions have come to mind about the functionality and what can be done.

So my first question is this: Can I setup a group of controls to control the Pan, Tilt, Zoom, etc of a camera and then setup a toggle switch or pushbutton control to select the camera? In other words can I have 3-4 cameras on the page but only one set of controls for movement?

Is it possible to switch between control page styles while on a control page? In other words, can I have Star Wars themed control pages, Dr. Who themed Control Pages, Star Trek themed control pages, etc... and have a single page that I can select the style from?

Last couple of questions: Do images have to be static or can they be animated? Is there any controls for changing the colors of the icons or does that have to be done outside of Indigo?

Posted on
Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:15 pm
Professor Falken offline
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Re: Control Pages - Oh so many options and questions....

So my first question is this: Can I setup a group of controls to control the Pan, Tilt, Zoom, etc of a camera and then setup a toggle switch or pushbutton control to select the camera? In other words can I have 3-4 cameras on the page but only one set of controls for movement?


I would imagine this could be done. The trick would be to have the toggle or button alter a variable, say CameraUnderControl or something. Then, use conditionals on the movement control buttons, such that if CameraUnderControl=1, the pan button pans camera one, if it=2, then camera 2 is panned, etc.

It would probably be easier to just have a click on a master thumbnail take you to a new CP for just that camera, then have the controls on that page link to that camera only. Once you did one, you could duplicate it and just change all the linking to the second camera, the third, etc.

While I have made a bunch of CP's, some even with some complex variable driven control elements like this, I am only now entering into the world of IP cameras, so I am not yet well versed in what can be done with the Security Camera and Security Spy plug ins. I did buy a PTZ camera, though, so I would imagine I'll be doing some of this same stuff very soon.

Is it possible to switch between control page styles while on a control page? In other words, can I have Star Wars themed control pages, Dr. Who themed Control Pages, Star Trek themed control pages, etc... and have a single page that I can select the style from?


This can be done, but it's tricky. I have done it on some simple pages used to control seasonal lighting.

There is no way to conditionally link to a particular page. So there is no way to, say, create a theme variable and have a link point to one CP if the variable =StarWars or to another page if the variable=DrWho. I think Matt and Jay have commented that it's on the request list.

There is a work-around though. The trick is to make a large variable linked image the size of the entire CP. You then place this as the lowest image on the CP (the actual background image becomes irrelevant). Then your "background", which is really just a variable linked image, can change with a theme variable. It becomes much more difficult, though, if you want all of your controls to change with the theme. Each control image then has to be a variable linked set of images, tied to that same theme variable. No matter what your theme is, everything has to have the same layout, be the same size, etc.

Posted on
Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:16 pm
DaveL17 offline
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Location: Chicago, IL, USA

Re: Control Pages - Oh so many options and questions....

Fxguy wrote:
So my first question is this: Can I setup a group of controls to control the Pan, Tilt, Zoom, etc of a camera and then setup a toggle switch or pushbutton control to select the camera? In other words can I have 3-4 cameras on the page but only one set of controls for movement?

You *could* do that, but it would be quite involved. What I would do is set up one page just how I like it and then duplicate that page and change the controls to camera 2. Rinse and repeat for each camera. Then for your "switch cameras" button, just have that load another page. To the person viewing the control page, it's one and the same. I do this to toggle weather stations for my control pages.

Is it possible to switch between control page styles while on a control page? In other words, can I have Star Wars themed control pages, Dr. Who themed Control Pages, Star Trek themed control pages, etc... and have a single page that I can select the style from?

That's a little tricker but doable. The way I would do it is to have a file called 'background.png' and then have the button call a Python script which changes the background.png file to the new theme. In other words, have all your various background images and whichever one you want as the active one, just create a copy named 'background.png" that overwrites the last one. Make the background a refreshing image url. If I'm thinking about that right, it should work. Might make a good plugin.

Last couple of questions: Do images have to be static or can they be animated? Is there any controls for changing the colors of the icons or does that have to be done outside of Indigo?

They can totally be animated. I use animated weather radar images and they work great. One thing to note about animated images is that Indigo Touch doesn't support them (at least not animated PNGs). In my experience, Indigo Touch displays the first frame of the animation only.

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Posted on
Thu Feb 01, 2018 7:19 pm
DaveL17 offline
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Re: Control Pages - Oh so many options and questions....

@ Professor Falken beat me by one minute. Hopefully, we've not contradicted each other!

I came here to drink milk and kick ass....and I've just finished my milk.

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