Differences

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

--- current [2020/03/30 13:51] – 9.4.30 James Sentman
+++ current [2020/09/01 15:47] – 9.4.33 James Sentman
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-=====XTension Version 9.4.30=====
+=====XTension Version 9.4.33=====
-Released: 3/30/2020\\
+Released: 9/1/2020\\
 \\
-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 Mojave and Earlier: [[https://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_9.4.33.dmg|XTension v9.4.33 (build 1024) 9/1/2020]]\\
-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_9.4.33_notarized.dmg|XTension v9.4.33 (build 1024) for Catalina Only 9/1/2020]]\\
 \\
-**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 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** 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.\\
-====9.4.30 Change Log:====
+----
-  * Fix for encryption library failures with the Home Kit Plugin
-  * Fix for shared units not updating in the plugin database. This affected Home Kit, Alexa, the Shared Database plugins and the WebSocket plugin.
-\\
-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.
+I was overly aggressive in the previous version at removing older deprecated plugins that have newer replacements. I have undone that decision and replaced all the plugins that I removed in the last release. Your database should load and run normally in this version if it has in any of the more recent versions. As of this moment the only plugins that have actually been removed from the package are the original Arduino plugin, the original Vera plugin, the original Hue plugin, and the original Barix plugin. If you are coming from a version old enough to have still included those you will have to edit the interface for those and change them to the new version before they can run.
-====9.4.28 Change Log:====
+You will see a new Plugin Validation window if any plugin issues are found at startup that will help you to know why something isn’t running and how to convert to the new plugin.
-  * 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.
+====9.4.33 Change Log:====
-  * 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: Plugin Validation Window. At startup and anytime you wish from the “Validate Plugins” menu item in the Database menu you can validate that all the plugins you are using are installed and are not about to be removed. If a previously available plugin has been removed there will be instructions there for how to convert to the new plugin. If there is a replacement for a deprecated plugin you’re using there will be a warning message there letting you know that you should convert to the new one as soon as possible. If there is no replacement for the plugin or if the plugin just wasn’t found it will also be shown there.
-  * NEW: Added the [[supported_hardware:serverevents|Server Events plugin]] for receiving unit updates or events from a standard HTTP Server Events Stream.
+  * I put back all but the originally removed plugins, including the original W800 plugin. So if you ran the last version and gave up because your w800 plugin was not running at all it will now work again just at startup without having to do anything. You’ll also get a message in that validation window letting you know that plugin is going away and how to convert to the new one.
-  * Icons in the Select Unit Icon window are now always presented in alphabetical order.
+  * NEW: The first pass at the Weatherflow plugin is included in this build. The only change from the last beta version that people are running is that it will now ignore multiple receptions of the same packet as can happen in networks with several bridges or routing nodes. **If you instsalled the beta plugin by manually copying it into your database plugins folder or using the “install plugin” menu item you will need to manually remove it from the database before XTension will run the built in version. Use the “reveal plugins folder for this database...” menu item from the Database menu and then drag the weatherflow.isf folder from there to the trash. Then restart XTension to use the new plugin.**
-  * 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.
+  * VERA: If you issue an X10 only command to a unit that is now part of a Vera interface it will no longer cause the Vera interface to crash and restart. Previously it would do this if you did something like tell it to send an All Units Off command which is an X10 only command as there is no equivalent for ZWave.
-  * 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.
+  * VERA: The Vera plugin will now properly handle many devices that the Vera considers to be “GenericIO” this includes many ZigBee devices. Perviously no values were found in those receptions. If anyone finds any that still don’t work please let me know.
-  * 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.
+  * VERA: The Vera plugin no longer logs an error after issuing the “updateNeighbors” command making you think it didn’t work even though it did.
-  * 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: Errors logged by an interface during shutdown will now be filterable in the log by the interface name. Previously this information was left out.
-  * 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: Previously with the new W800 plugin if you edited a unit on that interface it would lose the connection between the interface and the unit until you disabled and re-enabled the interface. This is fixed and you can now edit any units associated with the interface without losing the connection. Hat tip to Thomas Arman who figured out what was really going on there!
-  * 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.
+  * WEB REMOTE: I have increased the session timeouts drastically for both the Mobile Web Remote as well as the desktop Web Remote. This is especially helpful on the Mobile platform as you won’t have to go through the reload this app button if you are away from the screen for more than a couple of minutes. This really helps to make it more friendly and less frustrating to use. It will still time out in a few hours and if the iPhone shuts down the program in the background you’ll also have to reload it, but for just switching around and coming back to it this is a great improvement.
-  * 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.
+  * WEB REMOTE: The dekstop web remote is now much better at serving up large archived movie files. Even ludicriously large movies can be served up and will begin to stream almost instantly. In previous versions this all worked well for smaller files, but for larger ones there was a significant delay before they would start playing and after some size they would not play at all. This is now working very well.
-  * 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: Shared Databases will no longer log a long stream of alien address receptions while the connection is active.
-  * FIX: Fixed a potential issue with sending emails that could cause timeouts to be logged instead of the email being sent.
+  * FIX: The global “thisUnit” will now be valid even if you just created the unit script by clicking on the script icon in the list window rather than using the Edit Unit window to create the new script. Previously the thisUnit global would have been empty for a unit script created that way until you quit and restarted XTension.
-  * FIX: Fixed a minor issue where the transmitted packet count was not updated for a shared database connection.
+  * CHANGE: the global “thisUnit”, “thisScript” and “thisInterface” when used in a global handler will now be reset to what they would be if that script was running normally. So (thisScript) would return the name of the script that holds the handler and not the name of the script that is calling the handler as it did previously. This is a change from the previous behavior, but the previous behavior was not documented as on purpose and this seems more to me as to how it should work.
-  * Added support for radio button groups in the plugin configuration windows.
+  * FIX: If there was a script problem that caused the script queue timeout error to be logged the thisScript, thisUnit and thisInterface values were never cleared. This could lead to confusing logging for other script errors that might happen later as it could have claimed to be from the script that was left hung up in the background.
-  * 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.
+----
 =====Previous Releases=====