KHarms
Dec 13, 2010, 12:33 PM
When starting a new design in HCA there are many things to consider. As we discussed in before, HCA displays information in two panes – the design and display panes.
The design pane is organized like Windows Explorer which is used to view the file system on your machine. Each object in your design – device, program, or group resides in some folder. But what are those folders?
One way to organize your design is to create a folder for each room in your home and in that folder place all the devices, the programs that work with those devices, and group objects that aggregate the devices. For example, you may have a bedroom folder and in that folder may be ceiling lights, a lamp, and a TV. Another room could be a Studio with bookcase lights, overhead lights, two lamps, and several programs that operate on those lights. It also probably makes sense to have an “Outside” room for all those exterior lights and sensors. As you develop programs that respond to events related to devices in a room, those programs can also reside in the folder for the room.
When working with devices, programs, and groups, when you need to identify an object in a folder you use what HCA calls a “Two-Part Name” which is the folder name followed by the object name. For example, “Dining Room – Lights” or “Main Bath – Mirror Lights”
There may be some issues with making a folder for each room. There are some devices and programs that operate outside a specific room. Let me give you an example from my own home. I have a circulation pump that keeps hot water circulating to each room so that it doesn’t take so long when turning on the bathroom faucet to get hot water. When the pump – controlled by an X10 reply – physically resides in the garage it doesn’t really belong to the garage since it effects plumbing all over the house. I created a “Home” folder and in that folder are devices – like this pump – and programs that operate on the home as a whole.
Another organization often used is to have a folder for each room but, especially if you have lots of programs, to create folders for program sets. Since as we will see in later discussions how one action may best be broken down into several programs you may want to have group related programs in the same folder. For example, you might create a “Weather programs” folder for all the programs you have that work on weather data. Or a “Home mode programs” for programs that are run when changing home modes. Or a “common programs” folder for those programs used in many different places, or an “Entertainment programs” folder for a set of programs that control whole home A/V.
There are several other advantages besides simple organization in using the “a folder is a room” model. When using the Touch Screen Interface, its home page shows an icon for each of your folders. Being able to tap on a room and then enter that room to control the contained devices is a natural thing to do. Also, devices must have unique names only within a folder. So you can have devices called “Ceiling Lights” in different folders and HCA can handle that.
Besides the room folders you may want to consider a number of other folders for “utility” purposes. For example create a folder that holds copies of programs that you want to modify but are not ready to “go live” in your design. Also create a backup folder for objects that you want to save a copy of before modification. It’s easy to make a backup of an object. Just click on its name in the design pane, then right-click on the backup folder and select “Paste into this folder”. And finally you may want to create a “Trash” folder to hold objects that you want to delete but are not quite ready to lose forever. You can put items in your “trash” folder and mark them as disabled – open the object’s properties and look on the Name tab for a “Disabled” checkbox - so they no longer get considered when triggers are received or by the inspector when looking for problems.
There are a number of actions you can perform in the HCA UI to help manage your folders. Here are some:
If you right-click on “Home contents” in the design pane you get options to create a new folder – obvious what that does. The “Organize by Type” option redisplays the design pane sorting all your objects into folders by their type – device, program , or group. This organization is temporary! The actual folders objects resides in doesn’t change – only what the design pane shows changes. To put the design pane back to the folder view, select “Organize by folder”.
In addition to those options you can also change the sorting of the contents within all folders – to sort by their name, type, or primary address.
If you want to rename a folder all you need do is to right-click on the folder name and select “Rename”. Also on the right-click menu for a folder are options to sort just that folder’s contents by the type, name, or primary address.
To modify your design you can drag and drop objects between folders to change where they reside. HCA is smart enough to track the changes that you make with drag-and-drop. For example if a program referred to “Bath – Lights” and you drag the “Lights” device from the “Bath” folder into the “House” folder, the program automatically updates to refer to “House – Lights”. HCA permits you to create multiple selections so as to drag and drop more than one object at a time.
You can drag and drop folders to reorganize the order they appear in the design pane. Drag folder A and drop it on folder B, and folder A will now follow folder B in the design pane display.
HCA contains another feature related to folders called “Displays”. A display is alternative way to see your objects. For example, if you used the “one folder for each room” method, you may want a way to see all your first floor objects at one time. You can create a display named “First floor” and add to it icons for all the devices on the first floor – click on the display name in the design pane to cause it to show in the display pane, then drag icons you want to see in the display onto the display pane and drop them there.
A common question is: What is the difference between a display and a folder? Think of a folder as where your object is stored. If you have a “Lights” object in your “Living Room” folder that object will always be referred to as “Living Room – Lights” in any program or schedule you create. A display is simply “view” in the display pane of objects contained in one or more folders.
Do you need to have any displays in your design? No. it is just another way to help you visualize the objects in your home.
Finally, there is a feature common to, folders and displays: A folder or display can have a background image. That image could be an architectural drawing from a DXF file, or a picture. One common use of this is to show a representation of a floor plan and position your devices on the floor plan in their positions in your home. To have a folder or display show a background, just right-click on the folder or display and select Properties from the popup menu. On the background image tab are controls for choosing an image or DXF file.
We have found over the years that a bit of thought in creating an organization for your design is time well spent.
The design pane is organized like Windows Explorer which is used to view the file system on your machine. Each object in your design – device, program, or group resides in some folder. But what are those folders?
One way to organize your design is to create a folder for each room in your home and in that folder place all the devices, the programs that work with those devices, and group objects that aggregate the devices. For example, you may have a bedroom folder and in that folder may be ceiling lights, a lamp, and a TV. Another room could be a Studio with bookcase lights, overhead lights, two lamps, and several programs that operate on those lights. It also probably makes sense to have an “Outside” room for all those exterior lights and sensors. As you develop programs that respond to events related to devices in a room, those programs can also reside in the folder for the room.
When working with devices, programs, and groups, when you need to identify an object in a folder you use what HCA calls a “Two-Part Name” which is the folder name followed by the object name. For example, “Dining Room – Lights” or “Main Bath – Mirror Lights”
There may be some issues with making a folder for each room. There are some devices and programs that operate outside a specific room. Let me give you an example from my own home. I have a circulation pump that keeps hot water circulating to each room so that it doesn’t take so long when turning on the bathroom faucet to get hot water. When the pump – controlled by an X10 reply – physically resides in the garage it doesn’t really belong to the garage since it effects plumbing all over the house. I created a “Home” folder and in that folder are devices – like this pump – and programs that operate on the home as a whole.
Another organization often used is to have a folder for each room but, especially if you have lots of programs, to create folders for program sets. Since as we will see in later discussions how one action may best be broken down into several programs you may want to have group related programs in the same folder. For example, you might create a “Weather programs” folder for all the programs you have that work on weather data. Or a “Home mode programs” for programs that are run when changing home modes. Or a “common programs” folder for those programs used in many different places, or an “Entertainment programs” folder for a set of programs that control whole home A/V.
There are several other advantages besides simple organization in using the “a folder is a room” model. When using the Touch Screen Interface, its home page shows an icon for each of your folders. Being able to tap on a room and then enter that room to control the contained devices is a natural thing to do. Also, devices must have unique names only within a folder. So you can have devices called “Ceiling Lights” in different folders and HCA can handle that.
Besides the room folders you may want to consider a number of other folders for “utility” purposes. For example create a folder that holds copies of programs that you want to modify but are not ready to “go live” in your design. Also create a backup folder for objects that you want to save a copy of before modification. It’s easy to make a backup of an object. Just click on its name in the design pane, then right-click on the backup folder and select “Paste into this folder”. And finally you may want to create a “Trash” folder to hold objects that you want to delete but are not quite ready to lose forever. You can put items in your “trash” folder and mark them as disabled – open the object’s properties and look on the Name tab for a “Disabled” checkbox - so they no longer get considered when triggers are received or by the inspector when looking for problems.
There are a number of actions you can perform in the HCA UI to help manage your folders. Here are some:
If you right-click on “Home contents” in the design pane you get options to create a new folder – obvious what that does. The “Organize by Type” option redisplays the design pane sorting all your objects into folders by their type – device, program , or group. This organization is temporary! The actual folders objects resides in doesn’t change – only what the design pane shows changes. To put the design pane back to the folder view, select “Organize by folder”.
In addition to those options you can also change the sorting of the contents within all folders – to sort by their name, type, or primary address.
If you want to rename a folder all you need do is to right-click on the folder name and select “Rename”. Also on the right-click menu for a folder are options to sort just that folder’s contents by the type, name, or primary address.
To modify your design you can drag and drop objects between folders to change where they reside. HCA is smart enough to track the changes that you make with drag-and-drop. For example if a program referred to “Bath – Lights” and you drag the “Lights” device from the “Bath” folder into the “House” folder, the program automatically updates to refer to “House – Lights”. HCA permits you to create multiple selections so as to drag and drop more than one object at a time.
You can drag and drop folders to reorganize the order they appear in the design pane. Drag folder A and drop it on folder B, and folder A will now follow folder B in the design pane display.
HCA contains another feature related to folders called “Displays”. A display is alternative way to see your objects. For example, if you used the “one folder for each room” method, you may want a way to see all your first floor objects at one time. You can create a display named “First floor” and add to it icons for all the devices on the first floor – click on the display name in the design pane to cause it to show in the display pane, then drag icons you want to see in the display onto the display pane and drop them there.
A common question is: What is the difference between a display and a folder? Think of a folder as where your object is stored. If you have a “Lights” object in your “Living Room” folder that object will always be referred to as “Living Room – Lights” in any program or schedule you create. A display is simply “view” in the display pane of objects contained in one or more folders.
Do you need to have any displays in your design? No. it is just another way to help you visualize the objects in your home.
Finally, there is a feature common to, folders and displays: A folder or display can have a background image. That image could be an architectural drawing from a DXF file, or a picture. One common use of this is to show a representation of a floor plan and position your devices on the floor plan in their positions in your home. To have a folder or display show a background, just right-click on the folder or display and select Properties from the popup menu. On the background image tab are controls for choosing an image or DXF file.
We have found over the years that a bit of thought in creating an organization for your design is time well spent.