Control Page Newbie - Need Inspiration!

Posted on
Sun Jan 28, 2018 2:11 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Control Page Newbie - Need Inspiration!

I have a confession to make. As a user of Indigo since version 5, I have only scratched the surface of the incredible power and functionality that it has. Sure, I can control most of the lights and ceiling fans in my house, I can control the garage door and I've setup a schedule to turn the outside lights on at sunset and off at midnight but thats about it....

As I'm installing and configuring some security cameras, it was suggested / mentioned that I could use control pages to view the live feed. Ok, so up until now I've not touched control pages but figure nows the time to dive in. So what are some ideas / inspiration for what I can do? I mean basically I thought of them as basically a web page that can display / control an image and display / change a device state, but really hadn't considered much else with it.

What are some things I can do beyond simple device state display / change?

Posted on
Sun Jan 28, 2018 3:29 pm
Colorado4Wheeler offline
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Re: Control Page Newbie - Need Inspiration!

That's way too much information to try to explain in a post. Look around the forums and you'll find some good examples of control pages and excellent ideas of how they are implemented.

viewtopic.php?f=193&t=14371
viewtopic.php?f=133&t=1506&hilit=post+control+pages (67 pages of control page examples and discussion)
viewforum.php?f=83

http://wiki.indigodomo.com/doku.php?id=control_page&s[]=control&s[]=page

Way too many resources available in these forums and the documentation wiki regarding control pages. :wink:

My Modest Contributions to Indigo:

HomeKit Bridge | Device Extensions | Security Manager | LCD Creator | Room-O-Matic | Smart Dimmer | Scene Toggle | Powermiser | Homebridge Buddy

Check Them Out Here

Posted on
Sun Jan 28, 2018 3:50 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Re: Control Page Newbie - Need Inspiration!

Colorado4Wheeler wrote:
Way too many resources available in these forums and the documentation wiki regarding control pages. :wink:


While the options are endless I imagine it still all boils down to basically the elements available:

Device State
Variable Value
Static Image / Caption
Refreshing Image URL
Server Status Text
Server Status Icon

So it still seems to me that basically a control page is simply a graphical way to display information from the server. I mean aside from asthetics, whats the benefit of using a control page vs simply using the devices tab in the touch interface? Basically I can accomplish the same thing, just the control page being easier to look at / customize. Or am I missing something ?

Posted on
Sun Jan 28, 2018 6:36 pm
matt (support) offline
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Re: Control Page Newbie - Need Inspiration!

While you can inspect device states and variable values on the Devices and Variables pages, as you said Control Pages let you customize exactly what information you want to display and how you want it displayed (text, image, etc.). You can then visually group all the items however you want on the Control Page, combining variables values and device states all on a single page. Another thing is control – you can create buttons or text that perform any Indigo Server action (or group of actions). I have individual Control Pages for things like Security, Irrigation, Comfort, Audio, and Lighting. That is, I center the Control Pages around a central control theme for usability, which beats having to hunt through a bunch of Device folders.

Lastly, for piping real time image data into the UI is the Refreshing Image URL. The obvious use of that is for showing live video image updates (every second or so, so not quite as good as a video stream), but there are lots of folks using that control type for other creative purposes. For example, I have a weather page that has a Refreshing Image URL that points to a local news station's current radar image. Others use that control to provide dynamically generated content: UI controls, plotted graphs, etc. A lot of the plugins on this category of the Plugin Store generate images that the user then adds to control pages as a Refreshing Image URL.

Image

Posted on
Sun Jan 28, 2018 6:41 pm
jay (support) offline
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Re: Control Page Newbie - Need Inspiration!

Check out this forum, and specifically this post. That last link is to the last page of a very long thread, but there are a TON of example control pages all through it.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Sun Jan 28, 2018 9:41 pm
Fxguy offline
Posts: 153
Joined: Mar 24, 2011

Re: Control Page Newbie - Need Inspiration!

Thanks everyone, especially Jay. I didn't realize there was a Kudos Forum. I think spending some time looking through there will help with what I'm looking for.

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