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current [2019/07/01 19:51] – 9.4.20 James Sentmancurrent [2019/08/18 19:02] – [Important Info] James Sentman
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-=====XTension Version 9.4.20===== +=====XTension Version 9.4.22===== 
-Released: 7/1/2019\\+Released: 8/18/2019\\
 \\ \\
-Download: [[http://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_1004.zip|XTension v9.4.20 (build 1004) 7/1/2019]]\\ +Download: [[https://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_9.4.22.zip|XTension v9.4.22 (build 1008) 8/18/2019]]\\ 
-zipfile md5 = [[tech_notes:md5|99a806cd8033c20bbf10c45435441449]]\\+zipfile md5 = [[tech_notes:md5|e6a44fb9afcc35976ea19c062cb33684]]\\
 \\ \\
 +Download for Catalina: [[https://machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension9.4.22.dmg|XTension 9.4.22 Notarized (build 1008) 8/18/2019]]\\
 +**NOTE!** not all plugins are included in the Catalina build. Please see the Catalina note below for more info.\\
 \\ \\
-**NOTE** as of version 9.4.13 the minimum system version has increased to 10.10\\ + 
-Before upgrading to OSX Mojave please read the [[tech_notes:mojave|Mojave Support Page]].\\+====Important Info==== 
 +**Minimum System Version** for this release is OSX 10.10\\
 \\ \\
-If you have already upgraded to Mojave and have any scripts that reference applications other than XTension you must run them after the upgrade. The OS cancels your previous permissions to control other apps when the version info changes. If you don’t run those scripts and OK the dialog that will appear then ay scripts you have that try to do this will not run. \\+**Mac OSX Mojave** has changed the requirements for scripting of other applications. You MUST force any script to run that contacts a different application when you upgrade and click “OK” when it asks for permission or your scripts will silently fail when they run later. See the [[tech_notes:mojave|Mojave Support Page]] for more info.\\ 
 +\\ 
 +**Mac OSX Catalina** As of this moment I do not recommend that anyone update to OSX Catalina since it is still in beta. I am supplying a Notarized dmg version of XTension that will run on Catalina. The regular zip file release and any previous release version will likely not run at all. Please see the [[tech_notes:catalina|Catalina Support Page]] for more info. Not all plugins are Catalina capable at this time.
 \\ \\
-====Change Log==== 
  
-This version no longer includes the original Vera plugin but only the new Vera UI7 plugin. If you haven’t already upgraded to the new plugin when this version is loaded it will disable the original interface and write a message to the log asking you to convert. To switch to the new plugin edit your existing interface and change the device type popup to “Vera UI7”. The conversion dialog will popup and give you an opportunity to cancel the conversion before making a backup of your database and restarting the interface with the new plugin.+9.4.22 is a hotfix release to fix a regression in the last version and contains only one other new feature:
  
-  * NEW: The Raspberry Pi GPIO plugin now supports both Hardware and Software based serial ports. The hardware serial port handles the built in UART and any USB/Serial adaptors you have connected to the Pi. The Software serial will handle “bit banged” serial to any of the GPIO pins. You can create any number of these on the pi as you like. The serial data is brought out to a local TCP port on the XTension machine to which you can connect any network aware application or any other XTension plugin that can speak to a device over the network. This turns your pi into a multi-output Serial to ethernet/wifi adaptor with many possibilities. Note that if you need RS232 level output you must use either a proper level shifter or a USB/Serial adaptor. The Pi’s built in uart and gpio pins can only be attached to 3.3v and lower voltages or they WILL burn out. +====9.4.22 Change Log==== 
-  * Change: The Ramp Rate parameter to all the lamp control verbs is now treated as a floating point number and not an integer. This will let you properly send fractional second ramp rates to newer plugins that support that as the timing parameter rather than the older ones which used whatever value the low level device expected. As all the older plugins are updated they will ultimately all use the same value for ramp rate in seconds regardless of the underlying device. +  * FIX: Groups that are not dimmable will now behave the same way they did previously. 
-  * Change: The writing of the log file cache no longer needs to block the main thread making the program more responsive during a background database save. This eliminates potentially several seconds of unresponsiveness during a regular database save. +  * NEW: The “House Mode” Unit for the VeraUI7 plugin is now readable and writable. Previously it was a one way pipe to XTension of the house mode in the Vera. You can now set it from XTension and have the new values be sent to the Vera. Valid values are 1=Home, 2=away, 3=Night, and 4=vacation. Any other values that you would set will result in an error and no change being made.
-  * Change: I’ve removed the option in the preferences for “Keep database updated” This just ate SSD drives too quickly without providing that much added value. I also removed the checkbox next to the “save database every” entry. You can no longer turn off regular saving of the database but you can set the interval to anything from 10 minutes or longer. +
-  * Added a checkbox to turn off the “High Sierra Fix” background app. This is only visible if you are running High sierra and disappears again once you update to Mojave. Some folks are still having the occasional problem with that causing the app to hang up. If you wish to keep running High Sierra and have that problem you can turn it off in the preferences. Make sure to set your screen to never go to sleep though or XTension, and anything else you’re running on the machine, will periodically hang up for minutes or hours at a time until you or someone wakes up the screen. +
-  * Fix: The “Alerts” window shows again. This was broken in a previous release and would just open empty. It will again show you lists of interfaces with errors, units with errors, units with low battery indications and interfaces that are disabled. You can find this window in the Windows menu. +
-  * Fix: The RadioRA Lutron plugin works again with the new UTF-8 plugin support. +
-  * Fix: X10 address matrix is no longer displayed when you click the “...” button next to the address field for the new W800 plugin. It previously displayed but showed no useful information and logged errors if you clicked on it. I will revisit the matrix display for such things in a future build. +
-  * Fix: The “last message date” property is getting set properly for the new W800 plugin. This lets you better check for units that are failing to check in regularly even if they never sent a low battery message. You can use the “insert custom column” menu item in the list windows to add a column to display the time the unit was last heard from even if the last activity has not updated. +
-  * New: Added “resync”, “pause” and “Resume” commands to the websocket plugin. See the included demo page for how to use those and what they are good for if you’re interested. +
-  * Fix: The new Hue plugin no longer sends constant updates to try to set an error condition in a battery operated remote device that is not responding. +
-  * Fix: The new Hue plugin will properly update the local status and error conditions of lamps when you control them from a separate Hue app. +
-  * Fix: The new Hue plugin’s “slow polling” option was reversed really being on when it should have been off. It will now load up correctly. If you have manually reversed the logic to make it work properly for you please undo that. +
-  * Fix: The new Hue plugin will no longer throw errors when controlling certain lamp types rather than actually controlling them. +
-  * Fixed several layout issues with plugin unit controls that did not line up properly on the edit unit dialog. +
-  * Change: In the Vera plugin I increased the timeout before it reports a device is offline. This should accommodate the slightly longer restart times that newer devices are seeing. You won’t receive an alert until the device has been offline for a few minutes longer than the normal restart time. +
-  * Fix: The JSON server would throw an error if the charset was added to the content-type header causing problems on certain iOS versions for Locative receptions as well as other things. The content type is now properly recognized regardless of additional information that might be included in the header line. +
-  * New: Added a contextual menu and a toolbar menu action to the Manage Global Scripts window to clear the error display for that script. +
-  * Fix: Fixed an issue when renaming a Global Script. If the new name was the same except changing the case of some letters it would previously think you had entered the same name and change nothing. You can now make capitalization changes to a Global Script name. +
-  * Several small improvements to the database save and load times. Also less disk access during the first database save after loading since all scripts are no longer being marked as dirty during the init process. Nothing you’ll probably notice, but I have also found several of the other bottlenecks that I’ll be addressing in future builds. +
-  * New: Internally the sharing mechanism for plugins now supports sharing Views as well as all other data types necessary for displaying graphs and video streams on remote receivers. There is nothing available to connect this to, but the development internally is continuing apace and fun stuff will appear before long.+
  
  
 +====Change Log from 9.4.21====
  
 +Many existing plugins were updated to 64 bit executables for the upcoming update to Catalina. This is not the same as creating a new plugin as I am doing for some and should not create any conversion difficulties and makes no changes to the XTension database at all. If you need to go back to the previous build for any reason this will not cause you any problems with changes to the unit types.\\
 +The following plugins are now 64 bit:
 +  * [[supported_hardware:mysensors|mySensors]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:ad2usb|ADB2USB]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:weedtech|Weed Tech Data Acquisition and Control cards]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:radiothermostat|Radio Thermostat]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:ups|UPS and Disk Space]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:aprilaire|Aprilaire Thermostat]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:networkpresence|Network presence and ping]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:omnistat|Omnistat Thermostat]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:rcs485|RCS 485 Thermostat]]
 +  * [[supported_hardware:upb_pim|UPB Powerline Control]]
 +
 +All the API 2.0 plugins are now 64 bit and compatible with Catalina going forward. Several of the legacy plugins remain to be re-built and will not run on Catalina at all. \\
 +\\
 +  * NEW: Groups can now be defined as Dimmable. Dimmable groups also have a checkbox for supporting color and color temperature settings. If any of those checkboxes are set then the detailed unit controls for the group will contain the appropriate controls for that data. The dim level as well as any color or color temperature data that you set when controlling the group will be sent to all the Units included in the group. Very useful for setting up fixtures with multiple bulbs in them, or for controlling all the dimmable or color capable devices in a room.
 +  * NEW: Dark Sky weather data plugin. Not a replacement for the excellent Weatherman app, but I know some of us are having lots of problems with AppleScripting external apps in the latest OS versions and we need another way to get weather data that doesn’t require that to be working. Gets you access to all the Dark Sky forecast data as well as creating some really nice reports. See the [[supported_hardware:darksky|Dark Sky Plugin]] page.
 +  * NEW RFX plugin. At this moment the plugin supports only the original “RFXe” and Serially connected RFX devices. The original RFXe and RFX plugins will be going away in a future build and will never run on Catalina so please test the conversion and report any problems to me. Ton convert your existing RFX or RFXe interface first disable the interface, edit the interface and change the device type popup from either “RFX Ethernet Transceiver” or “RFX Serial Transceiver” to “RFXComm Transceivers” make sure to select “Legacy” as the protocol type below and then re-enable the interface. At this moment transmission is not supported. Please do not convert if you are using one of the other RFX interfaces or need the transmission features of the devices. More support for the newer devices as well as transmission is coming in a future version. Note that the plugin starts up in debug mode. To stop all the extra logging control click on the entry in the Interface list window and select “turnon debug mode” and then again and select “turnoff debug mode” This will be unset in the next build.
 +  * NEW: Added the “handler” parameter to the [[dictionary:events:createevent|Create Event]] verb. You can now use that to create a scheduled event to run a specific handler inside a global script. This has always worked for the [[dictionary:events:executescript|execute script]] verb but was never rolled into the create event verb.
 +  * NEW: A new Arduino interface is included in this build. The older one will not be converted to 64 bit so you must convert at some point before the next major release as I will be removing the old plugin at that time. The conversion is just editing your existing Arduino interface and selecting the New Arduino interface from the popup, saving and re-enabling the interface. If you experience any problems with the conversion please let me know.
 +  * NEW: If a plugin sends an error for a Unit, such as the Vera or the Hue hub telling us that a unit is no longer responding, you can now trap that error in the Units On script by creating a “on unitError( errorNumber, errorMessage)” handler. This is also available in the “insert” toolbar menu when editing a Unit’s On script. The errorNumber will be non-zero in the case of an error condition and zero in the case of clearing an error condition. In the case of it being zero the errorMessage will be empty.
 +  * NEW: The executable is now a “Hardened” runtime. This has little meaning in OS versions prior to Mojave but will be required in future versions of Mojave and Catalina going forward. In my testing this caused no problems for me at all but please let me know if the OS refuses to let you do something that you were doing previously.
 +  * Change: plugins that do not define any Unit types will no longer be listed in the Interface popup when creating a new unit. This will avoid the errors that would be logged if you previously tried to do this. For example the Alexa plugin is for sharing only, it doesn’t define any unit types of it’s own. Previously if you tried to create units assigned to an Alexa interface it would have thrown confusing errors to the log when you tried to save them.
 +  * Change: Groups now draw “Group” in the Device Type column of a List window rather than just being blank.
 +  * Change: Discrete (non-dimmable) units will now show their unit label, if any, in the value column rather than continuing to display the up or down arrow as they did previously.
 +  * Change: The initial loading of the database is now threaded. This was necessary as a Catalina fix. A known consequence of this is that the database backup window that happens when updating opens behind the startup progress window instead of in front of it as it used to do. I’ll sort that out in a future version, for now you can manually move the startup progress window out of the way if you wish to watch the progress of the database backup. This will clear up several things that were mildly annoying about longer startup times. For example the application will no longer be shown as “not-responding” during the startup phase in the activity monitor and such.
 +  * Change: Mouse Clicks are now allowed to fall through onto a View control of “Unit Description as HTML” this allows you to create more detailed controls with some interaction. So included javascript or links can be included and will run properly. Additionally if you click a link that wants to open in another window a new viewer window will open in XTension and load that page. This only works for links with targets of “_new” links that target the existing page will load inside of the plugin control in the view.
 +  * Change: Some minor changes to the Background Task window layout to better show longer status displays without truncating them so much.
 +  * FIX: The preset color display when editing an RGB Pseudo now loads properly without throwing errors to the log.
 +  * FIX: Few more minor changes to the threaded database save to eliminate the last known possible hang that folks were seeing.
 +  * FIX: The Alexa plugin will better recover from a situation where the network goes down and then recovers sometime later. Previously it could stay offline if that happened.
 +  * FIX: When doing a Search some comparisons were done considering case which could have caused some matches to fail. All searches are now done without considering case.
 +  * FIX: APC Status plugin. If you are connecting to a CyberPower UPS with the APC Status plugin and happened to do a poll while it was performing it’s self test XTension would consider that value a failed self test. It will now recognize that the device is doing a test, not turn on the self test failure unit, but it will display “Testing” as the default label for that Unit until the test is finished.
 +
 +\\ 
 +\\ Plugin API changes and fixes
 +\\
 +  * The “Plugins” folder in XTension has been moved inside the Resources folder as required by Catalina.
 +  * NEW: plugins can now add separators to the popup menu of Unit types to make larger lists more readable.
 +  * Changes to the plugin interface builder helper app so that interface control tab order is honored. Previously this could come out as random leading to very confusing interface behavior as you tried to tab from one field to another. It will take a few more releases before I can roll all those fixes into every existing Plugin but for newer ones it will just work.
 +  * FIX: Fixes to a couple more places where Unicode characters would have potentially caused errors.
 + 
 =====Previous Releases===== =====Previous Releases=====
 {{indexmenu>:current#2|js#doku}} {{indexmenu>:current#2|js#doku}}
current.txt · Last modified: 2024/02/05 17:53 by James Sentman