Discussion thread for Homeland Security status script

[Rupp]

Good job on the script. Steve I'm not sure its such a good idea to have a message box popup if the level changes by default. A lot of us down load scripts and run them not paying a lot of attention. This message box may stay up for hours with user intervention. I would suggest maybe setting a a virtual device with the level/status as well as maybe being able to send an email or page. Just offering some simple suggestions. Good job on the script.

-Rupp

[Rauco]

Thanks, Rupp. Hope it comes in handy

The msgbox was just an example. You can insert any code there you like. I'll update the post to point to that fact.

Steve

[paugusto]

Nice script Steve. I've set it up to email me. It will be interesting to see which will happen first when it changes, the whitehouse site or a CNN news alert. I'm going to guess CNN will catch it first if the level goes up - I got 2 alerts when it went to orange.


Paul

[jruby]

I am getting an error when I run the script in line 60 opject required.

[paugusto]

Jim,

The event that launches the script has to be named "Homeland" for the script to be able to reschedule the recurring time.


Paul

[paugusto]

I had a couple of misfires of the script overnight. If the instr tests fail, strSeconds never gets set and ev.rec_secs gets set to null(0) and re-triggers the script immediately. Luckily it worked ok the second time the script fired, otherwise I would have had a lot of email

By the way, I don't see it mentioned in the HomeSeer 1.6 help file but there is another event property, rec_mins, that sets the recurring minutes.


Paul

[Jebus]

Do you have any good Icon's........JG

The Garage

[ameridan]

I changed my script to use the minutes, because if you look at the event using the Homeseer screens (not the web screens), you'll see that 1600 seconds for instance displays 16 seconds, and it gets confusing.

Rich doesn't seem to respond to many bug reports (on the board, although he probably does fix the code right away), so I wasn't going to say anything. By the way Rich - this wasn't a complaint, but if we don't update to every beta level, and you don't atleast acknowledge our reports, it might be a few months, before we realize that you, in fact, did fix the bugs.

Actually, that brings up a good point. Is there really a good reason for Rich to maintain 2 sets of screens for every single option (along with 2 sets of help instructions too)? It seems like the original "add-on" web pages could be the primary interface now.

[Rauco]

Sorry guys, it was a quicky. I tried rec_mins and I got an error on it. Anyway, I'll get some error trapping in it.

And Paul, I agree. Probably CNN will hit first. Should be a good race though.

For icons, I was thinking of the ones from the Whitehouse iteself (resized of course):











I'm designing some and will post them as well. Any size requests?

[ameridan]

converted to gifs for automatic display on the status and Ultraview pages (although not as crisp as Steve's). I use virtual device z12 in the script that is also attached.

[This message was edited by Ameridan on Sunday, 09 February 2003 at 12:34 PM.]

[Rauco]

Here's some icons I threw together. I've posted a preview below. The zip of the individual icons is attached.

Added error checking and rec_mins to the script and reposted to the original in the Script Library.



[This message was edited by Steve Rauco on Sunday, 09 February 2003 at 12:12 PM.]

[Rupp]

Giving my 2 cents. In less than 24 hours there are, let me see ,3 different scripts. May I suggest giving the script updates to the original author and let him incorporate the changes. This will make it a much more manageable script. This is of course if Steve wants the task.

-Rupp

[ameridan]

I wasn't trying to steal Steve's thunder, but I'm using the script differently from Steve and thought others might benefit. Steve's instructions don't reflect the changes from seconds to minutes either.

[This message was edited by Ameridan on Sunday, 09 February 2003 at 02:55 PM.]

[Rauco]

Either way's fine with me. I didn't do this script for glory.

I appreciate Ameridan's input. I just let the called function up to the user's discretion as we're all going to do something different with it. The DeviceStatus is a good idea.

Maybe, let's get the code revised in one place and we can post different routines for the AlertChange function?

It was mainly a useful little snippet. Are there any other revisions needed besides the error checking and rec_mins I already added?

[Rupp]

I'm not talking about someone stealing someone else's glory or anything like that. I'm thinking about the hundreds of other users that have to try and discern which script does what and who added what options and later on when the script needs updating not having to figure out which one they have. Do you see where I'm going with this. I like the idea that everyone has input to a new script but in a little over a day it already starts to get confusing as to which script has what code in it.

-Rupp