Differences

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--- current [2020/06/16 17:56] – [9.4.31 Change Log:] James Sentman
+++ current [2020/09/01 15:47] – 9.4.33 James Sentman
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-=====XTension Version 9.4.31=====
+=====XTension Version 9.4.33=====
-Released: 6/16/2020\\
+Released: 9/1/2020\\
 \\
-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 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_9.4.31_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_9.4.33_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 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:====
+----
-  * 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.
+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.
-  * 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.
-  * 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.
+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.
-  * REMOVED: the original Hue plugin is no longer part of the package. Please update to the new Hue plugin.
-  * REMOVED: the original barix plugin is no longer part of the package. Please update to the new Barix plugin.
+====9.4.33 Change Log:====
-  * REMOVED: the original w800 plugin is no longer part of the package. Please update to the new W800 plugin.
+  * 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.
-  * CHANGE: you can now remove the address from a pseudo unit.
+  * 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.
-  * FIX: tp-link plugin no longer starts up in debug mode, though it is still very chatty about telling you about spurious network problems.
+  * 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: mySensors interface will no longer log unknown commands as an error if you have devices that are going to sleep and waking up.
+  * 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: 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.
+  * 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: 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.
+  * 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: 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: Errors logged by an interface during shutdown will now be filterable in the log by the interface name. Previously this information was left out.
-  * NEW: added several new parameters to the blink verb as well. See the [[dictionary:unitcontrol:blink|Blink verb wiki entry]].
+  * 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!
-  * 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.
+  * 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.
-  * 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.
+  * 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: 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.
+  * FIX: Shared Databases will no longer log a long stream of alien address receptions while the connection is active.
-  * FIX: (plugin API) Radio buttons in plugin dynamic interfaces now properly save and restore their state in the UI.
+  * 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: 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.
+  * 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.
-  * FIX: (plugin API) Text Fields in plugin dynamic interfaces now honor the alignment property.
+  * 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.
-  * 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.
-  * CHANGED: Many Many updates under the hood to make Catalina support easier going forward and to enable some new longer term projects that will be worth it on every level :)
+----
 =====Previous Releases=====