Differences

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--- current [2020/06/16 17:54] – 9.4.31 James Sentman
+++ current [2020/07/14 12:14] – update for 9.4.32 James Sentman
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-=====XTension Version 9.4.31=====
+=====XTension Version 9.4.32=====
-Released: 6/16/2020\\
+Released: 7/14/2020\\
 \\
-Download for Mohave and Earlier: [[https://www.machomeautomation.com/files/xtension/xtension_9.4.31.dmg|XTension v9.4.31 (build 1022) 6/16/2020]]\\
+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_9.4.31_not.dmg|XTension v9.4.31 (build 1022) for Catalina Only 6/16/2020]]\\
+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 non Catalina file above.**
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 ====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.\\
-====9.4.31 Change Log:====
+Please test the new DIY plugin!
-  * NEW: An alpha version of a plugin for Global Cache devices, specifically their IR transmitters. [[supported_hardware:itach|Please see the wiki article]].
-  * NEW: A new DIY plugin now compatible with Catalina. At the moment both the older DIY plugin and the new one are in the package but that will not always be the case. The conversion is simple and not one way, you can instantly go back to the older plugin if needed. [[supported_hardware:diy|Please see the conversion instructions on the new wiki page]] and let me know if you have any problems. I’m specifically interested in protocols that use a lot of binary data though I have tested it with everything I can talk to here and it is working well.
+====9.4.32 Change Log:====
-  * NEW: Verbs for screen control: [[dictionary:more:wakescreen|Wake Screen]], [[dictionary:more:keepscreenawake|Keep Screen Awake]], and [[dictionary:more:allowscreentosleep|Allow Screen To Sleep]] And I plan to add a verb to dim a screen as well in the next release.
+  * 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.)
-  * REMOVED: the original Arduino plugin is no longer included in the package. If you are still running the older plugin please convert to the new one. If you cannot for whatever reason please drop me a note and I can send you the original plugin, or you can replace it in the XTension package from the older version. On anything prior to Catalina it will still run as before but you need to update so that I can fix any issues you might be seeing.
+  * DIY Plugin: The new DIY plugin now calls the unit handlers in it’s Interface script as the old one did.
-  * REMOVED: the original Hue plugin is no longer part of the package. Please update to the new Hue 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.
-  * REMOVED: the original barix plugin is no longer part of the package. Please update to the new Barix plugin.
+  * 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.
-  * REMOVED: the original w800 plugin is no longer part of the package. Please update to the new W800 plugin.
+  * 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.
-  * CHANGE: you can now remove the address from a pseudo unit.
+  * FIX: Deleting an Interface script no longer leaves the folder in the database behind causing confusion later when creating a new one.
-  * FIX: tp-link plugin no longer starts up in debug mode, though it is still very chatty about telling you about spurious network problems.
+  * FIX: New DIY plugin no longer requires Python3 to be installed
-  * FIX: mySensors interface will no longer log unknown commands as an error if you have devices that are going to sleep and waking up.
+  * FIX: New DIY plugin no longer throws errors when receiving binary data that is non-UTF formatted.
-  * FIX: Fixed a memory leak in the JSON server associated with handling the request in an XTension unit script. This could cause the server to stop responding if you have a very active system and were doing a lot of processing in scripts in XTension.
+  * 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: in the WebSocket plugin the unique id of a unit is reliably sent as a string and not anymore as a number making the access the same in all places.
+  * 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 blink verb now works for the new Hue plugin. It was previously linked only to the original plugin and would refuse to send any commands for the new plugin.
+  * 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.
-  * NEW: added several new parameters to the blink verb as well. See the [[dictionary:unitcontrol:blink|Blink verb wiki entry]].
+  * 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.
-  * NEW: Added the [[dictionary:errors:lasterrordate|Last Error Date]] verb that will return the time and date of the last scripting or other error in XTension.
+  * FIX: The new VeraUI7 plugin will now properly update the House Mode unit in XTension when the house mode is changed in the Vera.
-  * NEW: The [[dictionary:errors:lasterror|Last Error Code]], [[dictionary:errors:lasterrormessage|Last Error Message]] and [[dictionary:errors:lasterrordate|Last Error Date]] are now saved in the database and will survive a restart.
+  * 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.
-  * FIX: Unhandled plugin errors and any output sent to the log from a plugin via stdio will be properly tagged with the interface id so that they will show up when the log is filtered for messages for that interface.
+  * 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.
-  * FIX: (plugin API) Radio buttons in plugin dynamic interfaces now properly save and restore their state in the UI.
-  * FIX: the XTension Kit Plugin more reliably recovers from any networking errors and so if that happens it will keep receiving pushed updates of things like temperature readings from the devices it is connected to.
-  * FIX: (plugin API) Text Fields in plugin dynamic interfaces now honor the alignment property.
+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.
-  * FIX: (plugin API) implemented defaults for most plugin dynamic interface properties so that you only have to specify them if you want something other than the default making the JSON descriptor file for them smaller, easier to manage and faster to load.
-  * FIX: Fixed a problem that could cause the Web Remote plugin to fail to load if you had a particularly large page setup or a particularly large database.
-  * FIX: The Dark Sky plugin no longer saves every response from the server to your documents directory unless you specifically put it into debug mode. If you’re using this plugin this is an important update as it could have generated a lot of files wasting space on your drive.
-  * NEW: (plugin API) new dynamic plugin element for a Text Area for multi-line entry of text data.