Finally, the home computer is reborn. The failure of the main household computer has meant my free time has been spent building and commissioning it's replacement. At a time when free time itself has been hard to come by, this has meant very slow progress on Elmo.
I have managed to do some work on the configuration transport. This is all XML based and so I've written a lightweight, cross-platform XML parser which helps with passing the information around. I have incorporated this into my test server and test client applications which are both hosted on Windows and that is working well.
The next step is taking rather longer because I need to port my configuration classes across to iOS. I knew this was technically possible, but I've had to research the specific details and hash up some test code to try it all out. In the event, it turned out to be very easy to do in the end but some wrong turns and mistakes meant it took a few evenings to get the details of the solution worked out.
I am now at the stage where I am ready to start porting the configuration transport code across to the iPhone. This will need to be wrapped in an objective C++ class so that the rest of the app can talk to it. I then intend to expand on the current configuration capabilities and then start to work on the other aspects of configuration, eventually getting to the point where I can define functions based on activities rather than individual device commands. Still a way to go yet.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Slowed by the real World
It's been a rather quiet time in the World of Elmo of late. The real World has, annoyingly, been encroaching with Birthdays and failed computers stealing a lot of my time away.
I have been working on the configuration of the remote app. I intend to store all the screen layouts on the server and download them to the device when needed since this gives a number of benefits in terms of system characteristics. I have managed to dynamically create tab views on the iPhone and am now working on a transport mechanism to get the information from the server on to the phone. Hopefully I will be able to devote a bit more time to this in the next couple of weeks.
Moving on, I've also been considering different control methods on the iPhone itself. A button box is only one of the possible solutions and I'd like to be a little more imaginative if I can.
I'm still treating this code as very much prototype but am starting to see ways of building in quite a lot of functionality in some rather interesting ways. Time will tell if these will work or not.
The next step is to complete the transposition of the iPhone software from a hardcoded button box to the genesis of a control browser, downloading content from the server.
I have been working on the configuration of the remote app. I intend to store all the screen layouts on the server and download them to the device when needed since this gives a number of benefits in terms of system characteristics. I have managed to dynamically create tab views on the iPhone and am now working on a transport mechanism to get the information from the server on to the phone. Hopefully I will be able to devote a bit more time to this in the next couple of weeks.
Moving on, I've also been considering different control methods on the iPhone itself. A button box is only one of the possible solutions and I'd like to be a little more imaginative if I can.
I'm still treating this code as very much prototype but am starting to see ways of building in quite a lot of functionality in some rather interesting ways. Time will tell if these will work or not.
The next step is to complete the transposition of the iPhone software from a hardcoded button box to the genesis of a control browser, downloading content from the server.
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