Steven... thought about collaborative Dev?

[Aaron]

Steven,
I'm currently looking for a Home Theater / Home Automation front end to call my home. BUT I've ran into a few issues...

1) I currently use Netremote and have invested a ton of time
2) XLobby looks GREAT but still lacks some must-have features to use for my WinCE touchscreen and integration with Homeseer (my home automation server software)
3) Media Portal looks promising too!

I was thinking that it may be a good idea to see if all the dev guru's building these apps wanted to combine efforts and build a seriously kick azz front-end. It seems to me that XLobby would/should be the base for the dev since most of the needed base functionality is already there.

what do you think?

[stevenhanna6]

1) I currently use Netremote and have invested a ton of time

not sure what to say here since xlobby has a pda client for pocket pc, I also have alot of time infested in my client...and so do alot of xlobby users who use their pdas with it.

2) XLobby looks GREAT but still lacks some must-have features to use for my WinCE touchscreen and integration with Homeseer (my home automation server software)

lacks what features? post a feature request if you want something...best I can do. There are alot of features waiting to be added....when plugin support comes out features will start getting added sooner i hope.

3) Media Portal looks promising too!

i agree looks cool, will most certainly fill a market niche. But so will xlobby, I believe the two can live peacfully side by side.


xlobby is a really good base(i'm a little bias), I'm still working on getting the plugin stuff ready to go...and I think you will see alot of people adding things to do what you need.

so I would say this...wait and see how xlobby evolves in a month and see if it fits your needs. If not there are some other options like you said. I am trying to do what your looking for I think...an all in one solution. But getting all the developers from other programs together just to work on one wont work in my opinion.

[mattdisaster]

But getting all the developers from other programs together just to work on one wont work in my opinion.

It would be like a scene from a mob movie, one of the other heads would take out all the compitition. But seriously here in the real world I dont think that would ever work. But that's not neccessarily a bad thing, if anything it only encourages the users (us) to voice what we really want from a front end. I think xlobby kicks the arse's of many of the other frontends out there and with the guidance of the users it'll only get better. It's stilll a baby (kinda) after all. heh

-matt

[Aaron]

Steve,
I did post my requests... I'd like to move to Xlobby but since I put so much work into my Netremote CCF it makes it hard without a CCF to Xlobby converter.

when I said there are still features Xlobby lacks there are not many, mostly a few GUI issues.

[stevenhanna6]

I'm not sure what the CCF format is, but it sounds proprietary....but if it looks like xml and has all the buttons put away neatly in individual files I might be able to make a simple converter. I'll be honest though, I cant really take away time from xlobby to make a "CCF to xlobby xml screen" program.

[Aaron]

CCF is an All-in-one format. It encases all the IR codes, images, etc into one neat package. It is well documented (if I were a programmer I'd make a converter).

I was thinking you may be interested since there are approx as many netremote users as Xlobby users and you may gain a ton of users if you made it easy to convert.

just a thought.

[jmv]

Steven,

I am a little surprised you don't know about CCF(I thought for sure the god of the HTPC frontend would have crossed paths with the god of hand held IR). CCF is what the Pronto uses as it's file system. If you are not familiar with the pronto, it is Philips highly programable LCD based all-in-one remote...it is a very common (ie most popular) remote for folks doing home theater. NetRemote borrowed the CCF format.

If you did have a CCF to XLobby converter that grabbed all the buttons and IR codes and converted them into XLobby Screens / USBUirt codes, I would be a VERY happy user. I am about to move my home audio over to your PPC client (as soon as you get the FLAC tag reader working ). If I could then just move my pronto CCF over to it I would be in 7th heaven. You can read about Pronto/CCF over on the RemoteCentral.com website.

Keep up the great work Steven. Xlobby is aleady the cat's meow from a features and eye-candy perspective...useability/out of box setup ease are where I would be putting my calories (i.e. documenting and coding to automate the setup process).

mv

[stevenhanna6]

Actually now that I think of it I do remember playing with ccf files and that philips editor. I was taking ir codes from it for my usbuirt.

I really would love to stop time and make an ccf to xlobby converter program, but I'm just way to busy right now. I can see the delima people have though, they invested all that time into ccf files that store everything and now they would have to redo EVERYTHING from scratch if they wanted to move over to xlobby.

A converter will be something I will look into, I just cant do it right now. A bet the guy who makes netremote could easily make a ccf converter. Another thing I would have to do is find some very detailed documentation on how everything is stored in the ccf file, how do I extract images, ir codes, button locations....you know the format could be insanely complex for all I know.

[kthorson]

A converter will be something I will look into, I just cant do it right now. A bet the guy who makes netremote could easily make a ccf converter. Another thing I would have to do is find some very detailed documentation on how everything is stored in the ccf file, how do I extract images, ir codes, button locations....you know the format could be insanely complex for all I know.

Just a quick note, I found a set of programs that will convert the CCF files to XML and GIF files. It would probably be a good place to start. You can find the "CCF Tools" over on RemoteCentral. I am not familiar enough with your XML format yet but I might take a stab at a converter in the near future.

[Aaron]

I can try it but doubt it will work with Netremote's CCFs since the are not backward compatible with Pronto's original CCF format.

Thanks for the info... I may try it if I decide to switch to Xlobby.