ocelot plugin..

[Jim Doolittle]

Jon,

Got the files and am going through them now. Thanks for the help. Let me know if you need my assistance with anything but IR stuff .

Jim Doolittle

[Jim Doolittle]

Jon,

I edited the spreadsheet and am getting ready to save the files. I like the way you set this up but I have a few questions before I go forward.

<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>Since I already learned some commands into Ocelot, I assume if things do not go well I can always reload my original .LIR file?
<LI>If things go pretty good but some commands that I would really like to have aren't working, then I need to deal with the .IRP files (after double checking spreadsheet)?
<LI>In the event that I dump some commands for others, I need to resave the spreadsheet info and be careful how that changes HomeSeer events/scripts?[/list]

If the spreadsheet is the way to go, I am farily good with VBA and could write Excel code that saves all the Dev* and IRLBL.CFG. Let me know if you want a copy of the resulting code. I will do it manually the first time though.

Jim Doolittle

[Jim Doolittle]

Jon,

I went ahead and wrote a VB module. It is not fully tested in that I have not checked whether GenIRDB is happy with it but it should be close.

The procedure for using it in case you do not know is to

<UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>Open Excel
<LI>Open Visual Basic Editor (Alt+F11).
<LI>Select File|Import File.
<LI>Import the attached file.
<LI>Close Visual Basic Editor.
<LI>Run ExportToGenIRDB macro (Alt+F8)[/list]

Jim Doolittle

[hanarmco]

&gt;Since I already learned some commands into Ocelot, I assume if things do not go well I can always reload my original .LIR file&lt;

Yes, no problem or you can learn the command(s) using the normal procedure and save that hybrid file.

&gt;If things go pretty good but some commands that I would really like to have aren't working, then I need to deal with the .IRP files (after double checking spreadsheet)?&lt;

Maybe, but the protocol files I have included were tailored for the Ocelot. Usually it's binary it works or doesn't.

This is one advantage of the generated command. Once you get it working correctly you can add commands with the device file or auto-generate all 64, 128 or 256 possibilities (depending on how many bits vary from command to command) and find new features.

&gt;In the event that I dump some commands for others, I need to resave the spreadsheet info and be careful how that changes HomeSeer events/scripts?&lt;

Yes I have a pristine spreadsheet for the manual method of doing that. But we use spreadsheets in the JP1 group to do essentially the same thing and we have a load and save function that saves the data in CSV format and a restore that takes the spreadsheet back to the "no entries" state.

Since you have done some of the VB stuff already, I can find out how the person that did those routines made it work or just send you the spreadsheet.

I can also create a Protocol builder spreadsheet that can do a similar thing to the device spreadsheet. If you could stitch those together with some VB magic then we would have a fairly automated process.

Finally, GenIRDB is written in VB and I could contact Barry Gordon (a fellow HS user) and see if we could automate the running of the sequential device files IF that makes sense AND you want to tackle that process.

-Jon

[Jim Doolittle]

Jon,

I already wrote a script and VB app to help HomeSeer and CMAX "talk the same language" with regards to IR labels and device names. I will need to alter my code to account for the generation of IRLBL.CFG via IRCM.

I think automating GenIRDB is the next logical step for simplifying the process. I think I would also alter my Excel VB code to check the differences between the current IRLBL.CFG file and the new one that IRCM is about to create and make a list of HomeSeer events that would be affected. I suppose I could also scan script files as well. This all sounds like a lot of work but not really.

If Barry were to provide source, it might be possible for me to directly pop it into the IRCM Excel spreadsheet as an Addin (meaning that it would be read only) and the whole shebang could be handled within Excel. Just a thought.

I have another question. How do you recommend that I document when I learn a command in an unused IRCM slot? A new sheet that is dedicated to documenting learned command? If so, the VB code could prompt you with a reminder that you will need to relearn the command when IRCM is generating new files.

I will be using GenIRDB tonight to generate files and get them into the Ocelot.

Jim Doolittle

[hanarmco]

&gt;If Barry were to provide source, it might be possible for me to directly pop it into the IRCM Excel spreadsheet as an Addin (meaning that it would be read only) and the whole shebang could be handled within Excel. Just a thought.&lt;

This would be great. I'll contact him and give a link to this thread. BTW, GenIRDB also does cde files for the sLinke (also supported by HS). So this tool also may be valuable over there.

&gt;How do you recommend that I document when I learn a command in an unused IRCM slot? A new sheet that is dedicated to documenting learned command? If so, the VB code could prompt you with a reminder that you will need to relearn the command when IRCM is generating new files.&lt;

I think the only reason to learn the commands will be for the IR Match feature, where you want the Ocelot to recognize a command and execute a script. There is apparently some time skewing and a tight set of parameters for IR match. So I have had poor luck in having generated commands match the OEM remotes. (and don't use the feature myself)

I hasten to add that only in a few cases, have I not been able to get generated commands working extremely reliably when transmitted.

So, the match feature is setup by default to be the first 80 commands (0 through 79). So I would suggest that all learned commands be learned to those first 80 positions. Save a master copy of that learned file and then have GenIRDB append to that learned file. You should probably learn a command in 79 to act as an EOF marker. We can verify using lir2ir if that makes sense.

Alternatively we could use a bogus protocol " 'learned" and pick off the exceptions that way and kick out a little report that says you need to learn SonyTV "sleep" in position 344 as long as we insert a ' in front of that bogus Protocol, GenIRDB will just leave a space for it and go right on.

-Jon

[Jim Doolittle]

Jon,

I used IRCM to create files (via my VB module) and the used GenIRDB to add the files to master.lir. However, I wasn't sure about whether I needed to add the "empty" device files or not. GenIRDB didn't like them so I didn't save the file. So now I have a master.lir file containing IR codes for 9 devices. I will import into CMAX tomorrow and test but now I need sleep.

Jim Doolittle

[hanarmco]

You don't need to copy empty device files after the last one that has entries in it.

You do have to copy all the way down (for a total of 36 entries for each device file (35 for Dev1), even though some are lines that are something like:

323- =

If there is a line with an equal sign, GenIRDB skips an IR position. In this case IR Position # 323 would be blank. In reality, anything to the left of the equal sign is just considered text by GenIRDB and anything to the right of the equal sign is considered a command.

So my numbering in the device file is only for reference. GenIRDB simply puts the commands in the lir file in the order that they appear in the device file.

-Jon

[Jim Doolittle]

I will alter next version of my VBA code for IRCM to not save the empty DEV files but it will copy entire range for others.

Jim Doolittle

[Jim Doolittle]

Jon,

It worked. The discretes worked fine. However, I am missing the "SOURCE SLCT VCR1" and "SOURCE SLCT VCR2" and for my JVC RX-709V receiver. These are key to me creating IR events that set up my entertainment system for "MovieTime".

How would I add those to the spreadsheet?

Thanks again for your help!

Jim Doolittle

[hanarmco]

Jim,

Those are commands JVC:163:63 and JVC:163:7. Those were in the command library I sent (and it is sorted in command order) but I didn't assign any IR positions to that device file (they were in IR positions 67 and 68 in your original lir) labled Tape1 and Tape2.

Do they not work or have you not found them. If they worked before then they should work now since they are the same commands (although generated).

If it is something else, I have a lot of resources to look for more commands.

-Jon

[Jim Doolittle]

Got 'em. I thought TAPE1 and TAPE2 were the for cassette player rather than VCR "tape". The unit does have cassette tape buttons called "Tape 1 monitor" and "Tape 2 monitor". I thought the entries were referring to those buttons. I'll try using TAPE1 and TAPE2 for VCR1 and VCR2. Thanks.

Jim Doolittle

[Kbevo]

Jim (Doolittle), if your still monitoring this thread, could you tell me the status of your VB Module and what it would take to get a copy of the source to what you have done? I am thinking about doing something similar, although my thoughts were to use an Access database rather than Excel.