Lost with xAP

[richardo]

I have a senario where I need to be able to run two x10 transmitters on my system - these will eventually be on seperate PC's.
To accomplish this I have looked into using xAP, but I'm completely lost!

I think I understand the basics of xAP - where the devices which are doing the controlling are essentially taken outside of the HS interface, and replaced with an xAP interface/conduit - but I just cant get it to work...

The ultimate goal is to have 1 x Ti103 device and 1 x CM12U

To start with I have tried to get the Ti103 to work alone.

I have installed a xfxhub onto the machine and can see that this runs as a service. I can see the heartbeat using a xfx message viewer.

I have installed and have run the xapmcsTI103 application.
This appears in the system tray - it allows for setup of the port but the other options (System Config & System Status & Help) do not do anything when clicked.
I can see the TI103 heartbeat in the xfx message viewer also.

Next I installed hspi_xAP2.ocx - in the configuration tab I was unsure what to enter as the X10 Target and have tried various permutations of IP address and computer name without any luck.

Ultimatley I can see in the xfx viewer that the list of my devices is populated.

The issue is that I can not figure out how to control these devices through the xAP.

I have spent days reading information from all over the xAP forums, but I'm still no further forward - is there an idiots guide that I have missed, or can someone give me some pointers how to set this up ?

[millrl]

This is a late reply -- hope you're still monitoring. And I have more sympathy to offer than anything else. I succeeded in putting together a decent 1 wire network several years ago, but still struggle mightily and would love to see that idiot's guide for my own sake.

I don't run any x10 devices, so I won't provide specific help in that area, but I would offer that you appear to almost be "there" with your network. Personally, I found that XAP control was easiest using the HS interface provided by the mcsXAP plug-in. Once you have the plug-in installed, you can see and control HS devices using "easy" standard HS methods; the advanced scripting interface even provides a "BSC template" for sending XAP commands -- I haven't found this useful given the HS "shortcuts", but it is instructive.

I've had issues getting some of the XAP components to work and had to try every imaginable combination of hub, viewer, 1wire and mcsXAP versions before finding ones that worked together. I never was able to get the latest .NET version of mcsXAP to run, for instance, but have had success with the "2319" version.

Don't quote me on any of this. Good luck!

Bob M

[Michael McSharry]

mcsXap was developed with HS1 with the general objective of exposing everything within HS to the LAN so multiple copies could be synchronized. It originally went under the name of Homeseer Over There. To understand mcsXap one needs to have a reasonable understanding of the HS1 API. This is normally viewed only by those who develop plugins for HS.

HS1 and HS2 provide three interface capabilities. X10, IR, and Other. If one is trying to control an X10 device then HS will communicate via the API to the X10 interface. HS1 and HS2 only support a single X10 (and IR) interface so it is not possible to have two hardware adapters for X10. xAP has a xap-x10 schema and that schema does not have a limit on the number of targets so it is possible to use mcsXap as the X10 interface to HS and then multiple X10 adapters can be tied onto the same LAN.

The user interface does not change so control of an X10 device is controlled via HS is the same no matter if a X10 plugin or mcsXap is connected to the X10 interface of of HS. In the mcsXap case, when an X10 device is turned ON then an xAP message using the xap-x10 schema will show up on the LAN and can be viewed with xAP Message Viewer.

If the message does not appear then either mcsXap has not been selected to be the X10 HS interface of there is a problem with the mcsXap install.

Over the years X10 has become less prevelent for HS control and the Other (IO) interface is normally used. Almost all plugins are connected to HS via this interface. mcsXap can be connected to this interface as well. It can be connected to all three HS interfaces at the same time if desired.

mcsXap uses the xAPBSC schema for communication via the Other/IO HS interface. This means that when a HS device changes state and this device has been Accepted in mcsXap as a device that will be transmitted then mcsXap will use the xAPBSC schema to put the deivce information on the LAN.

On the receive side xAP messages that come in via xap-X10 schema are communicated back to HS via its X10 interface. All other schema are communicated via the Other/IO interface. If the received xAP message is xAPBSC schema then mcsXap will intelligently map the contents of the message into the HS Device Status, Value, and String. Any other schema will be mapped only into the Device String.

There are many other checkboxes to enable callbacks and other types of communications. These will use xAP schema dedicated to mcsXap and their purpose is to provide synchronization between multiple instances of mcsXap/HS. In general these will never be used.

xapmcsTI103 was done for one user many years ago. I do not have a TI103 and I dont even have the source code for this anymore. I believe it was functional for that user when it was developed. The xAp Message Viewer is the primary tool to isolate if the sending or receiving end is where a problem may exist.

Over the years I have helped several people with their xAP installs and the promise is that when done a guide will be written to help others. There is only one person who I recall that actually followed through and I do not know what became of the guide he produced.

I have posted a guide in the xAp Library and I have included HS-oriented documentation in many of the more recent xAP nodes that I developed (e.g. WebControl, Image, Sonar). Typicall problems that I recall being experienced is that the computer has multiple NIC so the data is not going out on the interface expected/desired. \Config\mcsXap.ini is edited to overcome this. An xAP hub is not installed on each computer that uses xAP applications. In the early days some applications were not written to be sandbox friendly and only that one application would run and lock out all others. None of the mcs xAp applications exhibit this property. Some hubs in the past would try to enforce protocol so if a message was not perfect it would not forward it. mcs xAP hub(s) forward everything. It should not matter if console of service hub is used, but I generally use console one so I can look at data and statistics from tray icon.

[richardo]

Lost with xAP

Thank you for the responses. I'm away from home at present and will revisit the xAP problems on my return.