xapmcschart help

[FeMan]

Michael:

I have xapmcschart installed. When I right click on the tray incone to open the GUI Setup I get this error message. I did a search for that file and did not find it.

[Michael McSharry]

At the start of the ADIOcelot (mcs Plugins) forum there is a zip file with a number of controls used by VB6. These get placed in the Windows System for 32 bit applications directory and regsvr32 is used to register them into the Windows registry. xapmcsChart is a VB6 application. You can do this selectively to only install the ones you need or the entire set.

[FeMan]

I got them, thanks again Michael,

[FeMan]

Field Questions

A few questions about fields and links in the xapmcsChart program.

When I open the Groups Gui from the Tray icon I get the view below.

How can I get rid of all the links at the top of the page? They are all referring to http://MCS6:82/stat for instance. I looked at all the files in the data and config menus but did not find any reference to these links.

On the GUI Setup page, then on the Data Collection tab, there are 4 User Defined Type Labels. What are these for?

[Michael McSharry]

How can I get rid of all the links at the top of the page? They are all referring to http://MCS6:82/stat for instance. I looked at all the files in the data and config menus but did not find any reference to these links.

I think if you look for links.htm in your \html folder path you will find this. Delete it or change the links to something useful for you.

On the GUI Setup page, then on the Data Collection tab, there are 4 User Defined Type Labels. What are these for?

They are the labels that show on the chart for the sensor type for the user-defined type. This may be one place where the 17th digit is used. I would have to research to be more specific.

Dont try to use the Default group. Consider it a placeholder. Always define your group with a different name.

[FeMan]

Thanks

[FeMan]

Michael:



Questions:

If I use mcsTemperature inside HS, do I have a need for xapmcschart?



Where I am going with this line is, as I go forward and re-install all these programs on a new server, I want to go with your programs that are more likely to get modified and/or migrate to .Net, like xapmcschart?

[Michael McSharry]

In general xapmcsChart and the charting capabilty of mcsTemperature provide the same capability so use of both is probably redundant. There are variance in the two and depending upon the specific thing you try to do you may or may not see any difference.

xapmcsChart will only take data from xapmcsDatabase and this is only populated with data from xAP messages. mcsTemperature chart can take data from any HS device. If your environment is not xAP-centric then this may be a big difference. Of course anything that is a device in HS can be sent as xAP messages so it is not a real restriction, but just another checkbox that needs to be checked to have the data sent.

When HS3 arrives it is likely that mcsTemperature will not make the cut. This happened with several mcs plugin during the HS1 to HS2 migration. My migration toward the open xAP vs. the proprietary HS API was partially motivated by this situation.

For an end-user this dependency on HS API is not typically that big of a deal, but for one who develops software it is a big hit when the API drops support for previously developed software.

ChartDirector is used by both so this is not a consideration.

[FeMan]

Michael

the more I play with this xap stuff the more I realize how useful this protocol could be. I have a couple of devices that are just screaming for something like xap.

I have an old Concord alarm panel and serial interface that I thought would be a good candidate for a xap app. I have the API for the serial interface of the panel.

I found on the mi4 site a xap framework.net. I am certainly not a big time programmer but the way that framework read, it is all the low level interface that I need to create a xap app. Is that a good place to start. I use MS vb.net express to do my scripts and programs. If I am not mistaken I think I also used maxims framework to build a quick 1wire discovery windows app that I use for troubleshooting 1wire stuff.

I also want to thank you again for all your assistance.

Bob