Chowmain - Advanced Custom Buttons Driver / App

[alanchow]

 

Chowmain - Advanced Custom Buttons Driver / App 

Control4’s custom button agent allows you to add in additional buttons to your navigator screen. This makes it simple to add functionality that is not native or intuitive to Control4’s user interface. There are some issues with using the custom button agent. Mainly because it gives no feedback as to what the state is or if the action has been completed successfully. 

Chowmain has developed the Advanced Custom Buttons driver/app for Control4’s 5”, 7”, HTML5 web browsers and MyHome navigator user interfaces to provide a solution to this problem. Note the Onscreen Navigator is currently not supported. 

Features

• Maximum of 12 Custom Buttons 
• Programmable labels for each button - If empty the button will disappear. Great for multi-state buttons or modes. 
• Virtual LED feedback - On/Off LED feedback gives the user an indication as to what the state is of the device they are controlling or the state of the system or actions. 
• Graphics that match Control4’s UI - Designed to mimic Control4’s lighting scene buttons the button design blends in with Control4 seamlessly. 
• Web UI via inbuilt HTML5 based webserver in driver.
• Works with Android Wear with third party app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appfour.wearbrowser&hl=en)

• Works with Apple Watch with third party app (https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/home-remote-home-automation/id926193671?mt=8)

   

Frequently Asked Questions 

Can you give us some examples of how we could use this driver? 
* This driver is great for scenarios where you need feedback for your custom button. For example a button for holiday mode or automation mode where you need to know the state of a varible. 

Are there any other cool things we can do with this driver? 
* As this driver allows for dynamic labelling you can essentially expand this to an infinite amount of buttons by using one or two buttons to cycle through different pages. This will relabel and repurpose buttons for different uses. 

 

* The driver has a built in webserver which mimics the 4store application with dynamic labelling, led feedback and control.  The app utilises AJAX to communicate to the driver and polls it every 3 seconds for its state.  As such you can run the application on any web browser that supports HTML5 and even fire off commands from other applications or scripts to trigger the button (eg <http://192.168.0.250:51816/PressButton.html?button=0>)

What hardware will this work on? 
This driver/app will work on Control4 5 inch, 7 inch and MyHome PC navigators. Note you will need to install the driver first before downloading the app. Note this will not work on the onscreen navigator. 

How do I find out more information about the driver? 

Please see the links below for more information about the driver. 

Download Product Information Sheet 

Download Installation Guide 

How do I buy the driver?
This driver is developed by Chowmain software & apps and is distributed and supported by Houselogix, Inc. 

Download Driver / Purchase Licence

Download App

Who do i contact for technical support?
This driver is developed by Chowmain software & apps and is distributed and supported by Houselogix, Inc. 

Support

Do you provide trial licences?
All Chowmain drivers for Control4 come with a 48 hour trial. This is activated once you add the driver to the project. No additional steps are necessary. 

[cyevans]

Alan,

 

The advanced custom button driver works great on my touch panel.  I use it as an active dashboard to monitor key automation activity.  It works better than hard buttons because I can provide intermediate status (i.e., gate closing) on the labels and see the open/closed status of any item.

 

Please consider extending it to support a dashboard on a mobile device (iOS) or on-screen.

 

Thanks for a great product!

[alanchow]

thanks for your feedback.

Unfortunately ios/android control4 apps do not support custom apps.

We are currently waiting for control4 to release news about the future of 4store before continuing development.

[alanchow]

Alan,

 

The advanced custom button driver works great on my touch panel.  I use it as an active dashboard to monitor key automation activity.  It works better than hard buttons because I can provide intermediate status (i.e., gate closing) on the labels and see the open/closed status of any item.

 

Please consider extending it to support a dashboard on a mobile device (iOS) or on-screen.

 

Thanks for a great product!

 

This driver has now been extended to support HTML5 based web browsers.  This includes IOS safari/chrome, Android Chrome, PC/MAC/Linux Chrome/Safari and more.

 

The web view works on HTML5 Canvas with AJAX.  This means that not only can you use the inbuilt webpage for control / feedback but you can also directly fire commands via HTTP GET commands using 3rd party scripts/applications

 

[cyevans]

Thank you Alan!  This will really help.

 

Where can I find documentation about directly firing commands via HTTP GET commands?

[alanchow]

Thank you Alan!  This will really help.

 

Where can I find documentation about directly firing commands via HTTP GET commands?

You can fire a button by sending the following HTTP GET command

 

http://192.168.0.250:51816/PressButton.html?button=x

 

where x is 0-11 (representing buttons 1-12 starting from 0).

[cyevans]

Advanced Custom Buttons now works great on a mobile device / browser and it is fast (you don't have to wait for the Control4 App to start up / connect / navigate to the right room/device) to quickly check the status of something or perform an operation.

 

PS - You can also combine this with the "Home Remote" app for iOS to send the HTTP GET commands quickly with one swipe and a touch.

[alanchow]

Advanced Custom Buttons now works great on a mobile device / browser and it is fast (you don't have to wait for the Control4 App to start up / connect / navigate to the right room/device) to quickly check the status of something or perform an operation.

 

PS - You can also combine this with the "Home Remote" app for iOS to send the HTTP GET commands quickly with one swipe and a touch.

 

Thanks for the review and glad you like it.

[alanchow]

Advanced Custom Buttons now works great on a mobile device / browser and it is fast (you don't have to wait for the Control4 App to start up / connect / navigate to the right room/device) to quickly check the status of something or perform an operation.

 

PS - You can also combine this with the "Home Remote" app for iOS to send the HTTP GET commands quickly with one swipe and a touch.

 

I just setup the Home Remote app to test and i must admit i'm impressed.  Even works well for the apple watch.  Have written up a guide on how to set it up with my driver to make it easier for anyone who wants to do the same.  I like how you can use voice commands to fire off a quick command.  For anyone who wants to use more than the default 12 commands in the driver just add another instance of the driver upto however many as you want.

 

http://www.chowmain.co.nz/s/Chowmain-Advanced-Custom-Buttons-Apple-Watch-Guide.pdf

 

[alanchow]

So one of the Control4 staff members tried out my Advanced Custom Buttons driver with Android Wear and got it to work using this 3rd party app.

 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.appfour.wearbrowser&hl=en

 

[alanchow]

This driver has now been updated to work on Control4 T3 touchscreens.

https://www.chowmainsoft.com/advanced-custom-buttons 

[South Africa C4 user]

Hi Alan,

Great to see this working on T3s now.  I used you Advanced Custom Buttons app/driver on V2 Touchscreens years ago and must still have a key somewhere.  Will that key work for T3s now or would I need to buy another copy of the app/driver?

[alanchow]

3 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

Hi Alan,

Great to see this working on T3s now.  I used you Advanced Custom Buttons app/driver on V2 Touchscreens years ago and must still have a key somewhere.  Will that key work for T3s now or would I need to buy another copy of the app/driver?

Yep it'll work.  We migrated all Extra Vegetables and Houselogix licences over to driverCentral.

[South Africa C4 user]

5 hours ago, alanchow said:

Yep it'll work.  We migrated all Extra Vegetables and Houselogix licences over to driverCentral.

That's brilliant!

[Gary Leeds UK]

Stupid question - Will this work on ipads ?

I think its a no !! 

[alanchow]

3 hours ago, Gary Leeds UK said:

Stupid question - Will this work on ipads ?

I think its a no !! 

Unfortunately no.  Webview drivers are only available for the T3 touchscreen.  You'll see a ton of cool stuff coming out for the T3 so definately a good time to get one if you don't have one yet.

[VINCELdUB]

Stupid question - Will this work on ipads ?
I think its a no !! 

There is an iOS app called "Home Remote"







Happy Automating!!

[alanchow]

Actually the driver will still work in any web browser but it won't work in the Control4 is what I was trying to say.

 

[South Africa C4 user]

I used this app many years ago and had my dealer add it back into the project recently when it started to work on T3s and EA controllers.  I did not think that I would use it much as I thought Experience Buttons would have pretty much taken over here...

That said, I have found some really cool uses for it (thanks @alanchow ) where I want slightly more feedback (text) than Experience Buttons give.  I am now using it for two purposes:

1. To give pure feedback of information - e.g. I have one instance which displays the rainfall for each day in the last week usuing 11 of the 12 Buttons (4 as descriptors and 7 with values which change at midnight each night).

2.To display and adjust variables.

Having started to use this driver (again), I was thinking of some cool improvements that you (Alan) may want to consider:

1. Some flexibility in size (and thus number) of Buttons would be great. For instance, a button could be anything from 1 to 4 in height and from 1 to 3 in width... if you chose height = 4 and width = 3 for button 1 then there would only be room for one massive button (great for text feedback as long as you allow multi row labels). Personally, I would often find a use for 2 rows of 3 Buttons and then one massive 2 x 3 button at the bottom to put instructions in and / or to give feedback.

2. An extra state (“none”) would be great.  You would then have on, off and none to choose from. None would hide the “LED” totally and be useful for where you simply use the button to give feedback, not to press.

3. Something that I think would be cool but that I would probably rarely use would be different colors of LED (not just blue for on and black for off).

4. Something similar that I could see myself using more would be to have different colors of button...

Anyway just thoughts that I would love to see become reality!

[alanchow]

Thanks for the feedback.

[jfh]

I am trying to debug some issues with ACB on 2.10

 

I have multiple instances, though each instances uses port 49279 according to the properties page.  This doesn't seem right.

 Shouldn't each instance have a unique port?.  

If so, should this be set up automatically during driver install or do I need to change the port number for each instance above the first?  

If I need to change them, is there a guideline for what ports to use?

 

And - how do you get the buttons in a particular instance to display on a T3?

[jfh]

For displaying on T3, it looks like I'm supposed to see a selection in Guest Services/UI button, but I don't see that for any installed instance.

Should I have my dealer delete all the instances and the files on the controller and start over with a clean install?

[South Africa C4 user]

5 hours ago, jfh said:

For displaying on T3, it looks like I'm supposed to see a selection in Guest Services/UI button, but I don't see that for any installed instance.

Should I have my dealer delete all the instances and the files on the controller and start over with a clean install?

You can see it in Guest Services (which would make each instance that you make visible here available in every room) or, my preferred approach is hat you can make an instance available in any of the comfort, security, watch or listen screens by marking it as visible in the navigator settings in Monitoring (HE) or System Design (Pro). To do this, you choose the room you want it to be visible in under Monitoring and then choose the second tab on the center screen (called navigator - I think).  On this tab, you choose the menu you want to make this visible in (e.g. comfort - note: his won’t work for certain menus such a small lights) and then click modify... the rest is self explanatory.

[South Africa C4 user]

O yes, and if you want to change the name that appears on your T3, you would either need to change the driver name in System Design (Pro) - as I currently only have one instance working and my dealer named it for me, this is essentially what I have done - or use @msgreenf Device Renamer driver which I assume (hope) works for renaming Alan’s Advanced Custom Button Driver.

[jfh]

4 hours ago, South Africa C4 user said:

You can see it in Guest Services

 

I undestand that I SHOULD see it in Guest Services, but when I go to the Guest Services agent, none of the instances are selectable. 

 

Also - can you tell me if each instance has a different port number for the URL?

 

@alanchow  Does it sound like my driver install is bad?

 

since 2.10, when my installing new drivers to my project I usually see error messages as below and ACB is always involved.  Sometimes repair fixes it, most of the time it does not.