xapmcsImage Image/RSS for Digital Frames

[Michael McSharry]

What I have determined so far is that the client (Frame/WebControl) foreceabily closed the HTTP or SMTP connection and the recovery approach that I hade used was to close all the open connections being served and restart the listener. I have changed that recovery approach to still close all the connections, but also destroy the current listener and create a new one. I dont know why either the Frame or WebControl would force the connection, but what is important is the recovery mechanism to assure the server remains in a listening mode. I need to see the failure again to assure this solution approach will work. While the HTTP/SMTP connection was lost, the UDP connection for xAP continued without issue.

[Pete]

Yes, I haven't redone the installation of XaPMCSWebcontrol. Its still running but silent and hasn't updated any of the variables. As a test though unzipped original zipped file, ran it from the Unzipped directory and it ran fine. I didn't configure it though. My guess is that if I removed the INI file it would start up....but I don't know as I haven't tried that yet.

[Michael McSharry]

I noticed after running for awhile the abilty to server http pages stopped. The images continued to be constructed periodically, but the browser/rss interface stopped. I think you mentioned a similiar behavior with xapmcsWebControl. All the recent xAP applications have been done with .NET and I encapsulated the http/smtp/xap/tray logic in xapHTTPTray.dll. I will need to investigate why the socket interface has this problem.

[Pete]

Thanks Michael.

Going to give it a try in the next few days.

[Michael McSharry]

xapmcsImage is intended to produce custom images for display on digital photo frames.
It includes an edit function to identify the contents of constructed images, data gathering functions, text overlay, expression evaluation, periodic reconstruction and service of constructed RSS feeds.

The application runs standalone and will accept xAP message data as a source of information used for text and icon overlays. The text overlay can be formed with literal strings and as the result of expressions from received data.

Images are obtained from the file system, internet downloads and as a result of chart requests via xapmcsChart.

Image processing capabilities consists of positioning, sizing and merging. Text processing allows specification of color, transparency, font, size and style.

xapmcsImage it is a standalone application that can be used to statically build images and RSS xml files. For effective use in generating images based upon dynamic data an xAP environment is needed. For the Homeseer user this will consist of mcsXap Homeseer plugin that will make available Homeseer information via xAP protocol and an xAP hub that will route xAP messages within a PC.

Version History
1.0.0.1 PR1 HTTP header not accepted by Frame when serving RSS xml
1.0.0.2 PR2 Provide settings for defaults RSS server and Image creation path
1.0.0.3 PR3 Add conditional expressions and formatting of input data
1.0.0.3 PR4 Handle Socket error 10054 so servers continues to listen
1.0.0.3 PR5 Add image cropping capability
1.0.1.0 PR6 Add Database queries as a from of Alias
1.0.1.0 PR7 Add Merge to build RSS feeds from multiple canvases
1.0.1.0 PR8 Add top of page links to allow individual item editing
1.0.2.0 PR9 Add Animated Gifs
1.0.3.0 PR10 Add ALIAS as an activity for global variable definition
1.0.4.0 PR11 Add LOGIN as an activity to provide username/password for URL
1.0.4.2 PR12 Remove need for ShowRaw key in .ini file

Available at http://mcsSprinklers.com/xapmcsImage.zip
Manual only available at http://mcsSprinklers.com/xapmcsImage.pdf