2010-09-20

New WEB GUI

The weakest spot of NetHomeServer is probably currently the GUI. The current WEB GUI works for configuration, but to be honest – it is kind of geeky (See Link).

So, I am currently working on the next generation of WEB GUI. WEB development is not one of my strong points, so the development goes painfully slow. The new GUI is more oriented towards operating the devices than configuration. There are two main views where the Items are presented, one classic “map”-view where the devices are represented on an image. The controls for each Item “pop up” as a small semi transparent window when the mouse moves over the device. See below:



The other view is a more strict portlet style view, where Items are organized after the room they are located in. See:



I intended the portlet view to be the main GUI and added the map view more for demo or show. The funny thing is that when I have tried them at home for a couple of weeks, I tend to use the map view most, it feels more natural to really point at the location than to remember what I called each lamp. The development is still very much work in progress, but now it works enough for me to try it in real use. One truth remains – GUI development is hard!

6 comments:

  1. Nice looking!

    Any chans of a socket connection to the webinterface, like the one for the reciver?

    What sw did you use to make the 3D plan view?
    BR David

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  2. Thanks David!

    The 3D-plan is made with the excellent open source program Sweet Home 3d (http://www.sweethome3d.com).

    I am not sure what you mean with socket connector to the web-interface. You can access everything that the WEB-interface accesses via the TCPCommandPort for example. Everything you see is actually HomeItems. In fact even rooms, the plan-view and the WEB-Interface itself are HomeItems which you can access and manipulate via the TCPCommandPort.
    /Stefan

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  3. Regarding the sockets. I'm using HomeManger as a pure RX-interface for the 433,92 Mhz radio. The internal logic ad db is handled by my own sw and Tx byTellstick (FS20 for 868Mhz).

    I would like to use your Web interface in the same way. I will configure a system, but when i click a lamp over the web,i would like to get that as a socket command and not that homemanager tries to send it over TX.

    But dont go thru truble for me. I just see grat things I would like to use. :)

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  4. Hi David

    I must admit – that was not a configuration I had expected, but still it is a bit like I wanted NetHomeServer to be – a flexible building block for home automation.

    The answer is – yes, you can do that. If you just create lamp-items of any kind, NexaLamp for example and use them, they will send events. Normally these events are received by an AudioProtocolTransmitter, but the lamp-item does not know if there actually is any transmitter available. So if you are already listening for events via the TCPCommandPort you will see these events as well. You can see definitions of events at: http://wiki.nethome.nu/doku.php/events (but I see that I have forgotten the FS20-event there…). Hope this helps!
    /Stefan

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  5. Hi,
    How can I test this new gui? I seem to be missing some files or the right information to get it working.

    /Johan

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  6. Well, it is not really officially released, but you can try it out by creating an Item of type "HomeGUI" and specifying a local URL (for example "/home". There is no documentation yet (and it does not always work....)
    /Stefan

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