README.TXT for FireworX-10 v 1.3.0 - February 1, 2001 Contents ======== I. Introduction II. Installation Upgrading from 1.x to 1.3 Upgrading from 1.1 to 1.2 III. The menu system File menu View menu Tools menu Action menu Help menu IV. Manually controlling devices V. Scheduling events VI. Event sorting VII. Release history VIII. Contact information I. Introduction =============== FireworX-10 is a program that can be used to programatically control the CM17A X-10 module. The CM17A is a bare bones controller available very cheaply from www.x10.com. This software allows the ability to both manually control X-10 devices and to issue commands on a scheduled basis to control X-10 devices. Understanding of assignmment of house codes and unit IDs is assumed. This software is offered as freeware. The only thing that is asked for in return for continued use of this software is an e-mail to the author to indicate such. See the section on Contact Information for more information. II. Installation ================= Pretty simple, I hope. 1. Unzip the FireworX.zip file into a temporary directory. 2. Execute setup.exe and follow the instructions. 3. Remove the files you extracted in step 1. Upgrading from 1.x to 1.3 ------------------------- Saving your configuration and events is not as simple as it was when upgrading in earlier release. This is because in this release the database structure was modified to allow for some of the new features. You cannot simply copy in your old database file. If you Microsoft Access you can manually upgrade your database. Upgrading from 1.1 to 1.2 ------------------------- If you would like to save your configuration in terms of unit descriptions and events from your existing installation follow these instructions. 1. Save a copy of the FireworX.fwx to a safe place outside of the application directory 2. Deinstall FireworX-10 1.1 using the Add/Remove Programs utility in Control Panel. 3. Follow the instructions for installing 1.2. 4. Copy the FireworX.fwx from the safe copy you created over the new one installed in the program directory. Note: upgrading from 1.0 to 1.2 should be equally as simple since I have not made any changes to the internal structure of FireworX.fwx. I just have not tested this scenario. III. The menu system =================== File menu --------- Exit - closes the application. View menu --------- Devices - displays the list of devices. Each entry has the house code/unit ID, the description and the status. Of these, only description is user modifiable. Upon startup all statuses are set to UNKnown since the CM17A has no way to determine what state each device is in. As the statuses of devices are changed, either manually or automatically via events, statuses are updated to reflect the latest command sent to a device. Days Events - This displays a list of all events scheduled to run over the course of a given day. This is useful when evaluating what multi-day events might occur on a particular day. Once displayed, the list of Events is resortable by clicking on any column header. The list is then sorted by values in that column. Event Categories - Allows categories for events to be created, edited and deleted. Allows Categories of events to be enabled/disabled as a whole to add/remove then from the scheduled event process. For example, a set of events can be put into a 'Vacation' category. Then, when you go on vacation, that category can be enabled while all others disabled. History - This is a history of manually or automatically (event) issued commands. For scheduled events, the Event ID is logged along with the pertinent information about what the command was, what it effected and when it ran. For manual events the same items are logged except no ID is logged. The word 'manual' is substituted. A clear button appears in the dialog to clear the history. Tools menu ---------- Configuration - This allows several user configurable options to be set: Port - COM1 through COM8. Use the FireCracker application that is available from www.x10.xom to help determine whether communcation can be established with the CM17A via the selected COM port. Log History - a flag to indicate whether commands are logged to the history log or not. Start Minimized - allows application to minimize to System Tray upon startup. Favorite House Code - specify the House Code you use most. This will cause defaults in places where you need to enter it. For example, when specifying manual actions, when adding scheduled events and when viewing the list of units. Actions menu ------------ Run Events - An indicator on whether scheduled events are executed or not. This is useful for temporarily disabling the execution if events. By default, Run Events is turned on at application startup. Help menu --------- About - Displays some information about the application. IV. Manually controlling devices ================================== Use this section of the main application to manually issue commands to devices. To do this: 1. Select a house code 2. Select a unit 3. Select an action 4. Click the Send Action button If history logging is enabled, a record is written to the History log to reflect the command sent. V. Scheduling Events ===================== Events are scheduled actions. All events are shown in the Events section of the main application. An event is modified in the Events Properties section. Selecting any cell or an entire row for an event in the Events section, will make the Event modifiable and populate that Event's fields in the Event Properties section. Fields can then be modified as follows: 1. House Code - choose A through O 2. Unit - choose 1 through 16, or '*' for all units on selected house code 3. Action - choose 'On', 'Off', "+x%" or "-x%" 4. Start Date - choose a valid date in the format MM/DD/YYYY for this event to start. 5. End Date - choose a valid date in the format MM/DD/YYYY for this event to end. 6. Time - choose the time in the format HH:MM:SS AM/PM for this event to take effect. 7. Su through Sa - Choose "-" if this event is not effective on the day of the week or "x" if the event is to be effective on the day of the week. 8. Category - specify a category to group this event into. Once the changes are complete click 'Update' to update the Event. To delete an event choose it in the Events section so it is modifiable and then click the 'Delete' button. To Add an event, click the 'Add' button. A new event with skeletal information is appended to the list of events. VI. Event Sorting =================== The lists of events (in the main application screen, 'Days Events' view and 'In Force Events' view) is resortable. This is done by clicking on any column header. The values in that column become the primary sort for the list. Other columns serve as a secondary sort as follows: Primary Sort Secondary Sorts ------------ -------------- EventID N/A HouseCode Unit, StartDate, Time Device StartDate, Time Action StartDate, Time Description N/A Time N/A Category HouseCode, Unit, StartDate, Time Clicking on a column heading once sorts values in ascending order. Clicking the same header again sorts the values in descending order. VII. Release history ===================== 1.3.0 (February 1, 2001) ---------------------- a. Ability to start application minimized. b. Ability to resize application window. c. Added categorization of events such that they can be enabled/disabled as a group. d. Changed defaults for new event to be active on every day. This should prevent confusion from scheduled events seemingly not working when newly created. e. Modified "all on" and "all off" commands to use the 'real' commands instead of iterating through each device and sending individual commands. This works more reliably. f. Slightly modified algorithm by which scheduled events are run. Previously events that were put into effect during each iteration of the scheduler were those that were, for each unit, the last chronological event prior to the current time. This resulted in the following problem: when Fireworx was started in the middle of the day, the last event for every unit was run often resulting in unwanted results. This will no longer occur as events are only executed on their scheduled run time. g. The "In Force Events" view was eliminated due to f. above. Events are now run only when their scheduled time arrives so the concept of 'in force' is removed. h. Added mechanism to remember your favorite House Code which is used for defaulting that value in places where you need to specify House Code. 1.2.0 (January 31, 2000) ------------------------ a. Copy an existing event when creating a new one. b. Selectively display Devices on the Device listing by House Code. c. Click on column headers in Event lists to sort Events by values in that column. d. Application minimizes to System Tray instead of Task Bar. e. Days Events and In-Force Events views now display device descriptions in place of Start Date, End Date, Su, Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr and Sa values which had little relevance in that context. 1.1.0 (December 30, 1999) ------------------------- a. Added ability to send a single command to all units assigned to a house code. b. Added DIM and BRIGHT actions. c. Corrected problems with display of 'Days Events' and 'In Force Events' that occured when latest event updates were not reflected. d. Refined timing when sending codes to the CM17A. e. Revised clear history processing to be much faster. VIII. Contact information ======================= The latest updates of this software are available at http://www.ntplx.net/~jpjones Contact jpjones@ntplx.net with questions, feedback, enhancement requests or to be added to the list to be notified of future updates to this software. Your e-mail address will be guarded with the utmost of privacy. It will not be sold, traded or used otherwise except by this author in relation to this software program.