Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- current [2020/03/30 13:51] – 9.4.30 James Sentman
+++ current [2020/07/14 12:14] – update for 9.4.32 James Sentman
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-=====XTension Version 9.4.30=====
+=====XTension Version 9.4.32=====
-Released: 3/30/2020\\
+Released: 7/14/2020\\
 \\
-Download for Mohave and Earlier: [[https://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_9.4.30.zip|XTension v9.4.30 (build 1021) 3/30/2020]]\\
+Download for Mohave and Earlier: [[https://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_9.4.32.dmg|XTension v9.4.32 (build 1023) 7/14/2020]]\\
-Download for Catalina Only: [[https://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_9.4.30.dmg|XTension v9.4.30 (build 1021) for Catalina Only 3/25/2020]]\\
+Download for Catalina Only: [[https://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_9.4.32_notarized.dmg|XTension v9.4.32 (build 1023) for Catalina Only 7/14/2020]]\\
 \\
-**NOTE: the catalina download is a notarized disk image file but does not contain the entirety of the plugins as not all are updated to run on Catalina yet. See the Catalina note below or more info. Please do not use this image on a 10.14 (Mohave) or earlier version, use the zip file above.**
+**NOTE: the catalina download is a notarized disk image file but does not contain the entirety of the plugins as not all are updated to run on Catalina yet. See the Catalina note below or more info. Please do not use this image on a 10.14 (Mohave) or earlier version, use the non Catalina file above.**
 ====Important Info====
 **Minimum System Version** for this release is OSX 10.10\\
-\\
-**Mac OSX Catalina** As of this moment I do not recommend that anyone update to OSX Catalina. Changes in Catalina have disabled several of the older plugins and the newer ones are not fully tested with it yet. As of this moment I do not recommend running Catalina on your house server. I don’t see any advantages and there are many potential issues not just with XTension. I can provide an Apple notarized DMG file of the subset of plugins that do work properly if this is something that you need. Otherwise do not update to Catalina yet for your house server.\\
+**Mac OSX Catalina** the above linked disk image is notarized for Catalina however not all plugins have completed the transition to the new OS version. Please verify that your necessary devices are supported before updating.
-\\
 **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.\\
+Please test the new DIY plugin!
+====9.4.32 Change Log:====
-====9.4.30 Change Log:====
+  * NEW: [[dictionary:more:dimscreen|Dim Screen]] Verb to perform a gamma fade on any or all attached screens. Useful for adjusting the brightness of an attached monitor or blanking the screen entirely. (note that the **rate** parameter to the verb is not yet implemented. The screen will always immediately switch to the new value. I’ll sort that out in the next build.)
-  * Fix for encryption library failures with the Home Kit Plugin
+  * DIY Plugin: The new DIY plugin now calls the unit handlers in it’s Interface script as the old one did.
-  * Fix for shared units not updating in the plugin database. This affected Home Kit, Alexa, the Shared Database plugins and the WebSocket plugin.
+  * DIY Plugin: Note that the timing of when the data available event fires may be different for the new plugin compared to the old one. If you were relying on the event to fire only once for a line or packet it may now fire more than once unless you use the parsing options to properly break up the packets.
-\\
+  * FIX: A regression in the last version caused Interface scripts to be overwritten with their empty template when opening the edit window for them. (the work around was to use the previous version popup to restore the source from the last successful compile and then edit and save that again) this is now working normally again.
-This release was a hot patch to fix problems with Home Kit and shared databases. No other changes or additions were made since 9.4.28. The 9.4.28 changelog is included below.
+  * FIX: A regression in the last version caused the Say and Speak verbs default “wait” parameter to default to false instead of true and so unless you specifically added “with waiting” they would speak over each other if more than one was called at a time. This is now fixed.
+  * FIX: Deleting an Interface script no longer leaves the folder in the database behind causing confusion later when creating a new one.
+  * FIX: New DIY plugin no longer requires Python3 to be installed
+  * FIX: New DIY plugin no longer throws errors when receiving binary data that is non-UTF formatted.
+  * FIX: The new Hue plugin no longer prints constant errors to the log if you have a sensor or other unknown device configured for it.
+  * FIX: The new Arduino plugin now recognizes negative numbers as numbers and will probably set the value of the unit to them and no longer set them to the Description of the unit as it did previously.
+  * FIX: The new Arduino plugin now properly routes all types of commands to the Units. Previously some received or sending commands could get lost due to a different address prefix in one place vs the other.
+  * FIX: The Switchbot plugin will now again perform a scan for switchbots. This fix was in the plugin API to do a non-case sensitive search for the appropriate handler so this may fix some potential problems in other plugins as well.
+  * FIX: The new VeraUI7 plugin will now properly update the House Mode unit in XTension when the house mode is changed in the Vera.
+  * PLUGINS: The standard python includes will now automatically create the correct type of connection be it a TCP or a Serial connection simplifying the creation of new plugins that use the built in connection class.
+  * PLUGINS: Normally any output to stdout or stderr will be logged as if it came from the write log command. There are some libraries or functions that will always print to stdout or stderr and you may not always be interested in this. The plugin API has a new key to tell it to ignore the std pipes for logging to suppress some of the log spamming we were seeing specifically with the tp-link plugin. If the plugin is placed in debug mode all the logging will be done normally as before to aid in seeing the errors or information.
-====9.4.28 Change Log:====
+Please also remember that the original Arduino, Hue, Barix, Vera and w800 plugins are no longer included in the build. They have been replaced with new Catalina compatible plugins. If you haven’t already converted your interfaces to the new plugins simply go to the interface list window and edit those interfaces selecting the proper new plugin from the list and then enable them. These plugins have been around long enough that I consider them to be fully functional but if you have problems with the conversion let me know. Internally to XTension the older plugins will still work fine so if it is necessary you can pull the plugins out of the previous release and then use the “install plugin” menu under the Database menu to re-install them in this version. They will not run under Catalina going forward so it is important to get switched to the new ones at some point.
-  * NEW: The Return Of Alexa! This version has newer plugin versions that can get around the recent changes that Amazon added to their Alexa firmware. **There are several install requirements and configuration changes that are necessary before they will run.** Please have a look at the the [[supported_hardware:alexa|Original Alexa Plugin page]] and the new [[supported_hardware:alexasudo|Alexa Sudo page]]. The changes from Amazon make it impossible to run more than one instance of an Alexa plugin on the same machine and so I have also [[supported_hardware:alexapi|ported the code to the Raspberry pi]] so that you can run as many on those devices as necessary if you need to share more than the allowed 20 unit limit.
-  * NEW: The first pass at a Catalina capable RFX plugin for the newer RFX devices. This plugin is in alpha at the moment and incomplete. It does not try to transmit and does not yet support the lighting device types. It is limited to receiving the receive only sensors from Oregon and others. Please do not actually convert your existing plugin to this yet as things may change. Please do disable the current plugin and create a new one using the new plugin to test it. See if the devices you have are properly received and that new units are created in XTension. If you see any errors in the log when receiving them please forward those log entries to me. If you have other problems please also email me that. I will be adding support for the lighting and other transmit capable devices soon.
-  * NEW: Added the [[supported_hardware:serverevents|Server Events plugin]] for receiving unit updates or events from a standard HTTP Server Events Stream.
-  * Icons in the Select Unit Icon window are now always presented in alphabetical order.
-  * FIX: The [[supported_hardware:tplink|TP-Link plugin]] now better recovers from a connection error or a refused connection to devices that might refuse a connection once in a while due to their own internal issues or dropping temporarily off wifi. It is still a little chatty with error messages while this happens as I’m still collecting more info to fully understand why they sometimes refuse connections while everything appears to be working fine. I will reduce the logging in a future version.
-  * FIX: The xBee plugin will not get shutdown for failing to return pings on very quite networks. Previously if you didn’t receive or send at least some command every few minutes XTension would think the interface had hung up and would restart it.
-  * FIX: Fixed a problem that cause the master log window to not be restored if you had quit the program with a log filter set to an interface or plugin instance.
-  * FIX: Fixed a timing problem with the [[supported_hardware:databasesharing|Shared Databases]] new 2 way sharing of Unit Properties that could cause changes to bounce back and forth forever if you changed a unit property and then changed it again before the ack had bounced back to the originating server.
-  * FIX: Another issue with shared databases if you set a unit property from the on propertyChanged event those messages could also bounce back and forth forever. This is now properly supported.
-  * FIX: Fixed a problem in the [[supported_hardware:hue|Hue plugin]] that would cause many errors to be written to the log if a remote control device or keypad was not fully configured and was returning invalid button numbers.
-  * FIX: Fixed a problem in the [[supported_hardware:hue|Hue plugin]] that could cause it to stop receiving changes to lights made from other clients of the hue hub. The polling of both lights and sensors should be reliable now. Additionally the last beta version still had the problem with sensors not being reliably polled. This is fixed for the release version.
-  * FIX: In all plugin configuration and unit configuration windows and dialogs the tab order of controls will be correct, or at least sensible, regardless of the order they are created in within the plugin configuration files. Some of the plugin setup windows were actually tabbing backwards which has always driven me crazy but I’ve never gotten motivated to fix. If you see windows in XTension that still have incorrect or non-sensical tab order please let me know.
-  * FIX: Fixed a potential issue with sending emails that could cause timeouts to be logged instead of the email being sent.
-  * FIX: Fixed a minor issue where the transmitted packet count was not updated for a shared database connection.
-  * Added support for radio button groups in the plugin configuration windows.
-  * Added support for the barometer/temperature/humidity Oregon combo units to the Legacy RFX device plugin. The nomenclature for these is confusing and when I move all the existing RFX plugins to legacy status it will be more clear. Here I mean the currently supported plugin for the older RFX devices which was not able to receive these particular sensors.
-  * Changed the plugin interface for the current RFX plugin for the legacy RFX devices to not offer to receive the newer RFX device protocol. The two devices are now served by 2 separate plugin.
-  * Added the ability for a custom column in a unit list to also look into the lower level database of the unit for it’s value. You just need to use the actual database key rather than the name of a unit property. This will be of limited usefulness to the majority of you but has already come in handy for me in debugging things.