Audacious Software: Weblog

Shion news

Chris J. Karr — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 20:40:29 +0000

A few days ago, I posted an update describing what the company is up to. I wanted to follow up with a products post that describes what's going on with some of the internal Audacious Software work. Since that work is almost all Shion-related at this point, this will be a Shion post. :-) Read more for news on Shion, the iPhone client, and upcoming Caller ID features.

Company update: Client work

Chris J. Karr — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:06:37 +0000

It recently dawned on me that a whole month had passed since this weblog was last updated. The last several months have been quite busy between work on internal projects like Shion and work on external client projects. The lack of posts was not a symptom of a lack of company activity, but rather a reflection of how busy the company has actually been. I've posted extensively on Shion and other internal projects, but for readers interested in the kinds of paying work that Audacious Software takes on, the list below is a sample of some of the projects from the last couple of months. Read more for details.

Weblog updates

Chris J. Karr — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:03:01 +0000

Recently, I received a query asking why the comments were closed on this weblog, even for the most recent posts. The simple answer is that when I leave the comments open, the weblog becomes deluged with a variety of spam and I spend more time worthing through the spam than doing useful things such as writing code or updating this very weblog. Closing comments was always intended to be a short term solution, but has persisted longer than I originally intended. This morning, to address this problem, I installed reCAPTCHA as a means of leaving the weblog open, but not dealing with offers for little blue pills or whatever the Russians are peddling these days. I apologize for the inconvenience of having you prove that you are indeed a human each time you want to post a comment, but as recent history shows, the alternative isn't any better.

Shion 2.1.0b3

Chris J. Karr — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:05:46 +0000

Shion 2.1.0b3 is now available. This beta update includes the following changes:

Support for X10 house codes via the new "House" device
Memory leak fixes
"Motion Detector" devices have been renamed "Sensors"
TriggerLinc 2421 support under the new sensors category
2-way X10 support for devices that support X10 status request commands
Misc. GUI tweaks

Please post any feedback in the comments.

Shion 2.1.0b2

Chris J. Karr — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:06:41 +0000

Shion 2.1.0b2 is now available. This is a minor beta update that addresses a handful of Snow Leopard and Tiger bugs. Please note that other than compatibility fixes, there are few (if any) new features or other tweaks. Please post any feedback in the comments.

Codex Plugins 1.0b1

Chris J. Karr — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:04:59 +0000

In addition to home automation, Audacious Software has a variety of initiatives underway for creating new software applications. One particular area that I am interested in is figuring out how to bridge the worlds of electronic and traditional reading. This work began in 2003 with the creation of Books for Mac OS X and has continued to the present in my exploration of modern cataloging software (desktop & online) as well as the new class of dedicated reading devices like Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader. I'm calling Books' successor Codex and this software will focus upon building interfaces and services around the EPUB electronic book format. I'm still some time away from releasing any reading or editing tools, but work is quietly underway. However, in the meantime, I would like to release a part of the system that I'm calling Codex Plugins. This is a small plugin pack that you can install to both index EPUB files with Spotlight (including the contents of the book) and generate cover image previews suitable for use by Quick Look. The Spotlight plugins work with Mac OS X 10.4 and later, while the Quick Look plugins work with Mac OS X 10.5 and later. While I do not have any documentation or other web content available for Codex at the moment, you can download the plugins and begin using them today. Simply open the downloaded disk image and click the installer package within to get started. This plugin set is still a beta release and I know that they currently do not extract all the potential metadata and covers out of all EPUB files. I am working on improving this, and if you would like to help, please e-mail me any problem files that I can use to improve the plugins and test against. I'm very excited to be bringing my Books-related efforts under the Audacious Software banner and I hope that this small bit of code is useful for you. If you have any comments or suggestions, please post them in the comments below.

Shion & Snow Leopard

Chris J. Karr — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:50:03 +0000

After a long day of backups and upgrades, I finally was able to test Shion on Snow Leopard last night. A few observations: 1. Nothing in the UI is broken and the application behaves as expected. 2. The USB system in Snow Leopard is quite a bit faster than those in Leopard and Tiger, so communication with the INSTEON powerline controller proceeds at a brisk pace. The pace is so brisk that the unit can become overloaded and internal firmware crashes. This can be fixed by resetting the unit, but the PLC will freeze again within a couple of hours. This is a known problem and is easily solved by having Shion better moderate the communication between the computer and the powerline controller. 3. Because of the timing issue above, you will notice some odd behavior if you're using the latest beta - continuous device state report will fluctuate ("100%, 10%, 100%, 10%, ..."). This is the result of an interaction between the USB code and new ramp rate code. This is just a preliminary report and I'll have some more details and updates available as I spend more time with the app under Snow Leopard. If you are using Shion for anything important, please hold off on running it under 10.6 until I release a compatibility update in the next couple of days.

Shion 2.1.0b1

Chris J. Karr — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:26:02 +0000

Shion 2.1.0b1 is now available. This is a major beta update that addresses a variety of issues and includes the following new functionality: Support for motion detector events Support for setting lamp module ramp rates (INSTEON only, reset the modules to have changes take effect) Support for XMPP Regarding XMPP support: In this release, I am not limiting Shion to only talk to my own XMPP servers. If you want to run your own server, Shion can use that. That said, I reserve the right to remove/restrict this feature at any point in the future. If you wish to avoid problems with a future restriction, please send an e-mail requesting an XMPP account on an Audacious Software server. I'll post more instructions on using the XMPP functionality later, but if you'd like to get started, some tips: 1. Shion needs its own XMPP account and the client needs an XMPP account. 2. Shion will not respond to commands from the client unless the client's JID is in the Shion account's roster. 3. Shion will transmit status updates via the user status field. These are the same messages conveyed using Growl. 4. To communicate with Shion, open a chat to its XMPP account and use the following commands:

[device name] on [device name] off set [device name] to 0-8 activate [snapshot name] [device name] status ring [chime name] brighten [continuous device name] dim [continuous device name] set [themostat name] mode to [auto/cool/heat/off/etc.] set [thermostat name] cool point to [degrees] set [thermostat name] heat point to [degrees] toggle [thermostat name] fan status

Please report any problems that you have or any additional commands that you would like to see. In terms of the Ad-Hoc commands, download Psi, log in, and right-click Shion in your buddy list to begin executing commands. Shion will only expose commands if it has devices that can respond to them. Please post any feedback in the comments.

Shion 2.1 Updates

Chris J. Karr — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 22:11:07 +0000

Shion work is continuing and I'm getting close to releasing a 2.1 beta (probably sometime this weekend). Below the fold, updates on the following topics: 1. Shion XMPP support. 2. Shion online service. 3. Electric Meter. Please keep reading.

Towards Shion 2.1 (feedback requested)

Chris J. Karr — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:10:07 +0000

The last two weeks have been quite exciting in terms of Shion development. During this time, the following has happened: 1. Added support for new device types: chimes, motion detectors. 2. Implemented the XMPP network infrastructure. (This is under active testing.) 3. Improved the AppleScript functionality. 4. Fixed a variety of bugs. Rather than continue to use the 2.0.1 numbering scheme, the next non-beta release of Shion will be version 2.1. Beta testing will continue as I'm comfortable spinning off test releases. Now given the frantic pace of recent Shion development, I'm currently trying to nail down the 2.1 feature set. The new devices and new network functionality open up a number of options, but I would like implement a manageable number of features so that 2.1 does make it out the door. Here's my "Must Implement" list for 2.1: 1. PowerLinc 1132U & PowerLinc 2414S support. 2. 2-way X10 support. 3. Full event and AppleScript support for motion detectors. 4. Fix outstanding memory leaks. 5. AppleScript commands for configuring thermostats. 6. XMPP events (server connected, server disconnected, remote command received, etc.) This list will likely keep me busy for the greater part of the month of August. However, I also have the opportunity and equipment on hand to implement the following: 1. General sensor support: door sensors, I/OLinc-based sensors. 2. TiVo support: Remotely query Shion to see what's on your TiVo DVR. 3. Sprinkler support. 4. RemoteBuddy support. 5. Simple voice command interface (using Apple's built-in speech recognition) 6. Advanced voice command interface (using MacSpeech Dictate) 7. SmartLinc 2414N support. Adding some of these to the 2.1 release will delay the ultimate non-beta release, but I know that some of you are interested in some of the features above. If you're one of those who thinks that an item from the second list should be promoted to the first list, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!