Simple Feature Requests

Posted on
Fri May 05, 2006 6:51 am
DaveGee offline
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Joined: Nov 01, 2005

Simple Feature Requests

[EDIT]Locked this thread - please post a new topic under the Feature Requests forum for your feature requests - you should also search to see if someone has already requested the feature.
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While I'm still quite new WRT INDIGO and the forum... I thought this thread might be a good one to have. It could be a place where 'SIMPLE' (well potentially simple anyway) ideas / features could be requested. Yes, yes, I know all too well that something that 'seems like it should be simple' isn't always the case.... but maybe this'll work anyway. :lol:

Simple Feature Request:

1 - Log actions 'differently' when they are 'FORCED'

When a timed action or triggered action (or heck, any action) is 'FORCED', as in MANUALLY triggered from within the INDIGO software (in other words, hitting the 'EXECUTE ACTION NOW' button) have the log file written as to indicate that it was 'FORCED' and not executed because of a normal, timed, automated and/or programmed event that kicked off.

This could be helpful when you're trying to debug 'something' where you need to look over the logs from days or even weeks ago.

As far as what 'differently' means?

This is how a normal log entry might look: "Time/Date Action Evening Mood On"

This is how a 'forced' log entry might look: "Time/Date Action Evening Mood On - (Forced)"

Or even: "Forced Time/Date Action Evening Mood On"

Something like that... but I kinda like it tagged on 'at the end' cause if someone has/had written some kind of log-analyzer it would be less likely to break if the word forced were tagged onto the end instead of at the beginning.

Dave

Posted on
Fri May 05, 2006 7:52 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: Simple Feature Requests

Hi Dave,

I made the post sticky. Your feature request sounds good, and in this case I think it is actually a simple one to implement. :-)

Regards,
Matt

Posted on
Fri May 05, 2006 9:09 am
Otis offline
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Joined: Jan 24, 2006

(No subject)

On the above suggestion, another possibility would be to list the forced items in a different color.

Another feature that I would find very helpful now that the lists in the UI are getting longer:

Let users organize devices and actions into folders with disclosure triangles, like in the Finder, or like Photoshop's Layer Groups, or like Final Cut's bins. If users could define their own folder organization it would be much easier to find items — folders could be set up to represent rooms in the house, or HVAC, or irrigation, or security, etc.

Posted on
Sat May 06, 2006 7:02 am
DaveGee offline
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Joined: Nov 01, 2005

(No subject)

Otis wrote:
Let users organize devices and actions into folders with disclosure triangles


If you mean like iPhoto and/or iTunes where you can have groups (and maybe even smart groups?) then I'm with ya..

I can see myself wanting to group all 'living room timed actions' and/or all 'bathroom action groups' and/or all 'motion sensor trigger actions'

Kinda Like:

\/ Master Bed Room (open triangle exposing...)
- MB 30% (an action group that turns on 4 lamps to 30%)
- MB 50% (an action group...)
- MB 70% (an action group...)
- MB ON (an action group...)
- MB OFF (an action group that turns off 4 lamps)

> Bath Room (closed triangle)

\/ Living Room (open triangle exposing...)
- LR 30%
- LR 50%
- LR 70%
- LR ON
- LR OFF

Now I know this stuff isn't a 'simple request' ... not as simple as my initial one anyway... but it would be a great feature.

On the same note.... maybe a new 'ALL VIEW' where you could see EVERYTHING (time/date, action groups, triggers, etc) all on one list (with grouped disclosure triangles) this way I can see and group all of the things that have to do with 'master bed room' and/or 'bath room' etc etc etc.

One of the potential issues I can see with this is wanting 'some trigger' and or 'some action group' to belong to more than one of your newly created 'groupings'. I guess it could be doable but I don't see how I could be done easily (and intuitively). 'Finder Aliases' are the thing that comes to my mind as a potential fix but to me that seems like a messy/complex solution (especially programatically).

Dave

Posted on
Sun May 07, 2006 1:25 pm
DeepTech offline
Posts: 40
Joined: Nov 28, 2005
Location: New York, NY

Simple Feature Requests

Here is a simple request.

On the detail section on the bottom of the Main Window. Under the Action heading...

When the action is to execute an external script, please display the name of the external script.

Also it would be great if the columns were resizable.

Posted on
Thu Jul 27, 2006 8:03 pm
DPattee offline
Posts: 453
Joined: Jan 14, 2004
Location: Redmond, WA

Location field

I was about to post a new thread when I noticed this one. The 'groups' mentioned above are basically what I was going to ask for.

Specifically what I was going to say was, that I wanted an extra field added to devices so I could list what location the device was. So then I would be able to issue commands to groups of devices. What I have done for now is create a bunch of actions. First I have "per room" ones, like "Master Bedroom - Off" that sends off commands to all the devices I listed as being in my bedroom. Then I have 2 more actions that in turn call the "per room" actions, these are "Upstairs - Off" and "Downstairs - Off" (and the 'on' pair too of course). If that could key off of a field in the device entry that would be better, becuase then these groups would be dynamic, rather then me having to remember to update the actions when I add/remove/move a device.

Also this would help with organizing the main device list screen. I have all my devices named in such a way that I can sort them which I assume is what other people have done. So I have "Master Bedroom - Main Overhead", "Master Bedroom - Closet", "Kitchen - Main Overhead", etc. (back when I still used x10 for everything I had individual house codes for the different rooms too, insteon obviously does away with that feature)

Posted on
Fri Jul 28, 2006 8:23 am
DeepTech offline
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Joined: Nov 28, 2005
Location: New York, NY

(No subject)

One more Simple Request.

It would be great if a Trigger Action condition could easily include time range.. eg. Upon trigger do action if time is between 12:00am and 6:00am.

- Craig W.

Posted on
Sun Jul 30, 2006 7:22 am
zarac offline
Posts: 23
Joined: Apr 28, 2006
Location: Colorado Foothills

Re: Simple Feature Requests

DeepTech wrote:
When the action is to execute an external script, please display the name of the external script.


I like logs that allow me to control the logging level so I can pinpoint problems without a lot of irrelevant messages. I use a lot of external scripts and control logging like this:

Code: Select all
property debug : true

on anAction()
     if debug then log "Doing anAction" using type "External Script"
     <do>
end anAction


Ric Turley
Last edited by zarac on Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Posted on
Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:17 am
zarac offline
Posts: 23
Joined: Apr 28, 2006
Location: Colorado Foothills

(No subject)

I would appreciate "Dummy" devices and "Hidden" devices. I found I can set up Insteon devices with "undefined" addresses, but it would be nice to have official dummy devices. I use these for testing by logging responses for a while before going live. By unchecking a "Show Hidden" box, Indigo could provide a better synopsis of the house devices.

I also use dummies with my object-oriented external script approach to create virtual devices. In the kitchen I have 2 lights (Kitchen North Light & Kitchen Main Light) and 3 switches (Kitchen North Primary Switch, Kitchen Main Primary Switch & Kitchen Secondary Switch) - the lights are virtual dummies and the secondary switch controls both physical lights. My script then talks to light objects that send commands on to the primary switch. The script responds to local control by setting the appropriate on level for the controlled virtual lights.

"Alias" devices could help with the grouping strategy mentioned in other posts by allowing the same device to be a member of multiple groups. My object-oriented script uses lots of aliases; the same switch may be part of the sunset, sunrise, kitchen, dining room and light groups. A group might also define the light strategy above by grouping controllers under the light.

Ric Turley

Posted on
Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:43 pm
bigfishaudio offline
Posts: 8
Joined: Aug 09, 2006
Location: Los Angeles

Wish List

I'd like to see the following features added.

1) Multiple arguments in the Conditions tab. It would be nice if you could select "And" or "Or" for each Argument.

2) Tags for putting Variables and the Variables value in an e-mail.

3) Ability to send an e-mail to multiple e-mail addresses. (maybe this is already possible but using a "," in between addresses did not work for me.)

4) Conditions added to Action Groups.

5) An action to delete all pending delayed actions. (something like a reset)

6) In the log the Delayed Actions to display the action name (i.e. _delayed_action_0 "turn on hallway light"

7) Direct support for Zwave.

8 ) My Powerlinc USB interface doesn't support Device State Changes when the computer is off. I would like a way to turn my conditions into scheduled events when quitting Indigo and uploading to the Powerlinc interface. (i.e. A1 turns off, B1 turns on. A1 is set to turn on at 8:00 am and auto off in 5 minutes. When Indigo quits I'd like it to upload this as a schedule to the interface, A1 on at 8:00 am, off at 8:05 and B1 on at 8:05.) This way I can cycle through my sprinklers, changing each stations durations often.

9) Ability to send a house code and unit code without an on or off command. Some devices need this for programming. (Maybe Indigo can already do this but I am not sure how to make it work.)

10) A preference that allows Indigo to wake up my sleeping monitor and bring Indigo to the front when any action takes place.

Tom
Big Fish Audio, Inc.

Posted on
Fri Aug 18, 2006 9:02 am
matt (support) offline
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Re: Wish List

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the great feedback.

For #9 you can use the Maxi Controller application.

Regards,
Matt

Posted on
Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:10 pm
macpro offline
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Location: Third byte on the right

(No subject)

I added some new stuff to my X10 set tonight.
In Indigo I started by copying an existing trigger, because it did all I needed, except I had to change the device and action group.
Off course I forgot to make a copy of the action group first and make sure I had it ready when I started on the trigger.
So I had to save the new trigger which still used the old action group.
Copied the action group and prepared it for the new X10 module.
Went back to the new trigger and made it execute the new action group.

For me, it would have been nice if the action group selection list would give me the option of copying an existing action group to a new one, so I can finish defining the trigger in one step.

Posted on
Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:28 pm
bcmayes offline
Posts: 119
Joined: Apr 02, 2006
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Simple Feature Requests

Let me add my support to the "grouped devices" request. Note that this is not the same as an "Action Group" (though one could sort of achieve the same effect with Action Groups).

Example: I have ICON/In-LineLinc pairs in my laundry room and hall bathroom, and a "virtual 3-way" pair of SwitchLincs at my basement stairs. There's never a time when I want to turn one half of a pair off without the other half: I always want to turn them both on or off.

Currently, turning on or off the non-load-bearing switch via Indigo does nothing to the light, while turning off the load-bearing switch leaves the companion switch at 100% (either Indigo or the PowerLinc [or both] doesn't pay attention to the controller/responder relationship between the switches).

If these pairs could be grouped, I could act on them as the effective single switch that they surrogate, and could do so without switching back and forth between the Devices and Action Groups windows. The "triangle" feature would also allow me to shorten my list: the ICON/In-LineLinc pairs especially cannot function individually, so I would probably keep mine collapsed and save screen real estate.

Finally, this is also a good work-around until Indigo can formally manage links between devices.

Mac mini 1.25, 1024MB RAM; Indigo 2.0

Posted on
Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:18 am
dduff617 offline
Posts: 659
Joined: Jul 05, 2006
Location: Massachusetts, USA

(No subject)

i would like to echo support for "action groups" as well.

if i understand correctly, indigo already "knows" about what actions take place as a result of pushing an indigo button because it downloads the links from the switches at the time an indigo device is setup. this means that if i have two crossed-linked switches, A and B, then indigo knows that if i hit switch A, that B goes on and vice versa. so indigo is already collecting this information and using it to correctly track the state of linked devices. it seems to me, however, that indigo is not currently exploiting this information as thoroughly as it could/should.

in my opinion the first logical improvement would be to simply expose this level of group knowledge to the user by adding a new type of action for a device, separate from a simple on/off/dim command which tells indigo to essentially simulate a command at the device, e.g., to simulate what would have happened if the on button on a device was pushed. to do this, indigo obviously would simply reference the link table associated with the device. as a first step, this would make programming indigo a lot easier. with no additional setup, you could now send "smart on", "smart off", and "smart dim" commands to a single device and have the LED's of other paired switches update correctly. in today's version of indigo, when your action groups turn on cross-linked switches, you have to (manually, tediously) reference the linked devices. i believe this step could be accomplished with a relatively small amount of change to the indigo software.

the next logical step, in my opinion, would be to expose the actual groupings of devices to the user - i.e. so they can be edited. this would obviate the tedious setup tasks for new devices: push button, hold, walk to the other switch, push, hold, ... it would also save having to "eyeball" the on-levels and ramp rates for various devices involved in a scene when doing manual setup - instead, you could set these values directly from within indigo. this would require more substantial additions/revisions to the indigo software, but nothing extraordinary.

a third logical step, then, would be to allow creation within indigo of "virtual" devices. a virtual device is a device which is "simulated" by indigo and the insteon controller, but otherwise behaves like a normal insteon device in terms of how the device appears in the indigo interface, including the fact that it can be "paired" with other devices. thus, you could send "smart" on, off, and dim commands to a virtual device. this capability would be a huge improvement in terms of the ease of supporting "scene-like" capabilities within the indigo program. as a side-effect, it would allow insteon a means of controlling the LED state of buttons on keypadlinc devices -- an important feature, in my opinion, for which there is no support in the current version of indigo.

Posted on
Sat Sep 02, 2006 9:11 am
matt (support) offline
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(No subject)

dduff617 wrote:
if i understand correctly, indigo already "knows" about what actions take place as a result of pushing an indigo button because it downloads the links from the switches at the time an indigo device is setup.

This is correct.

dduff617 wrote:
in my opinion the first logical improvement would be to simply expose this level of group knowledge to the user by adding a new type of action for a device, separate from a simple on/off/dim command which tells indigo to essentially simulate a command at the device, e.g., to simulate what would have happened if the on button on a device was pushed.

Unfortunately, this is impossible given how the INSTEON protocol is defined. Indigo cannot simulate or masquerade as another device to send out one of its commands. The PowerLinc V2 can send out group commands (Indigo doesn't do this yet), but they have to be groups defined and linked specifically with the PowerLinc V2. It is impossible to have the PowerLinc send out the same command that a KeypadLinc (or other module) sends out when one of its buttons is pressed.

dduff617 wrote:
the next logical step, in my opinion, would be to expose the actual groupings of devices to the user.

Agreed, and this is what is planned when Indigo gets link management. Link management, along with the ability to send INSTEON group commands will all be implemented as a single (large) feature. I don't think there are any shortcuts around this that will have an acceptable level of usability. We'll get there, it'll just take some time.

Regards,
Matt

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