AJF Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 Did I imagine the whole thread or was it removed sometime today???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zipperman19 Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 I was just wondering the same thing! Don't worry, you're not losing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 That is strange. I don't think I've ever seen CYTEXONE remove a post that wasn't a spam post.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zipperman19 Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 I guess it was because someone was offering out composer on it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJF Posted October 25, 2007 Author Share Posted October 25, 2007 Well it's been up for quite a while so he had plenty of time to remove it along with all the Tramadol threads :-). Besides, it transformed into a great discussion about whether or not DIY'ers should be allowed to have access to Composer software in the first place. I thought it was very balanced and made some important points from both sides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wingzz Posted October 25, 2007 Share Posted October 25, 2007 censorship at its best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
read99 Posted October 26, 2007 Share Posted October 26, 2007 Really quite silly. The discussion was a good expression of the various perspectives. Dan, you really should not have deleted the thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted October 26, 2007 Share Posted October 26, 2007 I'm baffled, and somehow doubt that someone from CYTEXONE did delete the thread, unless it was by mistake.They're honestly not the sort to censor something like that thread.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danlevine Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Hey Everyone,I just wanted to clarify this situation. I was contacted by numerous people at control4 asking nicely to take this thread down. Composer is not supposed to be a product that is distributed to end users. If your dealer has given it to you, you should be very happy and keep it to your self. Publicly offering Composer out there is completely against Control4's policy and it's essentially Illegal.We generally would never censor any posting, but that particular post started off wrong, and went completely wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seefour Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Hey Everyone,I just wanted to clarify this situation. I was contacted by numerous people at control4 asking nicely to take this thread down. Composer is not supposed to be a product that is distributed to end users. If your dealer has given it to you, you should be very happy and keep it to your self. Publicly offering Composer out there is completely against Control4's policy and it's essentially Illegal.We generally would never censor any posting, but that particular post started off wrong, and went completely wrong.Dan,Several thoughts on Control4's position on Composer were also taken down in that thread. I don't see why notice of the illegality of distributing Composer would not have sufficed and the other debates allowed to remain. I would like to think C4 takes notice of end users ideas and comments.....hope!Does Control4 have issue with end users posting comments on their business model and products as I am not sure what you mean by "and went completely wrong". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zipperman19 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 I think it was because the first post in the thread was someone who gave their e-mail address and told anyone who wanted composer to e-mail them. Maybe they should have just removed/edited that post. But either way, it's not that big of a deal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danlevine Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 It really wasn't that big of deal and zipperman you hit the nail right on the head... The post started out incorrectly, and to be honest hindsight I should have removed just that one person offering composer instead of removing the entire thread...I'm sorry about that everyone, I am just trying to make sure to do the right things on both fronts... I understand both sides of the situation and it's tough on either side. Control4 is trying to protect the quality of their product as well as protecting the dealers that commit a large percentage of their time on utilizing and implementing the control4 products correctly.Composer is a pretty straightforward piece of software. There are customers of ours that would like it for their own systems so they can make their own tweaks, and I have no problem doing that for them. But posting a advertisement for a copyrighted piece of software on this forum, is flat out illegal and we will have nothing to do with it.I wish I could give out Composer to everyone, to be honest Composer Home Edition is pretty sweet. It lets you do almost everything you need to to tweak your system, but leaves all the additions / changes to the physical equipment to a "certified dealer". Now this certified dealer SHOULD have much more experience than someone who tinkers with it.I know that we are maintaining about 30 systems at this point, and have seen and understand so many intricacies of control4. If we didn't do so many systems, we would be putting systems in peoples homes and giving control4 a bad reputation because we don't know what we're doing.Anyways Control4 has a lot of very talented people focused on the product. If they don't want to give out composer thats their decision and if you don't like it, you shouldn't purchase their products. If you really want it that badly, become a dealer... Purchase the initial equipment, go through the 3 days of training and start selling systems. If your looking for something to tinker with this may not be the right product for you at this time. The future may be very different but right now you just need to follow the rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slemay Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Can't agree more with Dan... only other than to say that Composer HE, for whatever reason, has gotten a bad word here in these forums... it really is a GREAT product... the two things it limits is not really stuff that should be a big deal... it does allow the home owner to pretty much change just about anything in their system, it just keeps them from adding new hardware (which most likely would have been purchased from a dealer anyways) and keeps loops out of the game (which more times then not just crashes a system). I don't know how most dealers handle their business, but if my customer purchases Composer HE and does all their own work, comes to me to purchase an item - I'll sell it to them and be more than happy to spend 5 minutes via remote access to add it to their project - AND NOT CHARGE THEM anything extra... as they want to do all the programming etc... all themselves... and I think most dealers would be the same way... so Compose HE really is a full product when it comes to programming etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJF Posted October 27, 2007 Author Share Posted October 27, 2007 What are "loops" ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seefour Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 Can't agree more with Dan... only other than to say that Composer HE, for whatever reason, has gotten a bad word here in these forums... it really is a GREAT product... the two things it limits is not really stuff that should be a big deal... it does allow the home owner to pretty much change just about anything in their system, it just keeps them from adding new hardware (which most likely would have been purchased from a dealer anyways) and keeps loops out of the game (which more times then not just crashes a system). I don't know how most dealers handle their business, but if my customer purchases Composer HE and does all their own work, comes to me to purchase an item - I'll sell it to them and be more than happy to spend 5 minutes via remote access to add it to their project - AND NOT CHARGE THEM anything extra... as they want to do all the programming etc... all themselves... and I think most dealers would be the same way... so Compose HE really is a full product when it comes to programming etc...As an end user I applaud your buisness model. Great job!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zipperman19 Posted October 27, 2007 Share Posted October 27, 2007 They are somewhat like an if statement, but instead of saying "If the light is on, turn on the music" you would say "While the light in on, the music is on" and the music is ALWAYS on while the light is. You could also say, while the music gene That's a very broad example, but Loops can be very powerful while writing actual programs. Its something that keep repeating a command until the condition stop the loop.Has anyone used a loop for anything significant in Composer, and if so, what? I'd be interested to see their usefulness, because I haven't found a need for one over an if statement yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanE Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 Thanks for the clarification, Dan.RyanE Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alano Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 slemay, I agree, HE is a great product and the perfect tool for an end user. Believe me, if I found a dealer like yourself, I would have been more than happy to have you do the installation. (Although I'd have been peering over your shoulder the whole time...strictly out of interest and curiosity.) Actually, I don't even have Pro, I used the dealers notebook for the install but I've been able to do everything I need on HE ever since,I did have a tough time with some dealers though, I heard everything from "you can't have more than one controller in your house", "you MUST by the matrix audio switch for multi-room audio", "I refuse to install the system with your HK receiver, you need buy a Denon". So you can imagine how I was getting frustrated. I even inquired to Control4 about becoming a dealer and taking the course, but they (understandibly) didn't want another dealer in our city.Question for you dealers, do you ever configure a system on the 'bench' then just send someone out to do the physical install? Ever let a customer do the physical install? It seems like it could be appealing some end users looking to save some money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJF Posted October 28, 2007 Author Share Posted October 28, 2007 You said 2 things an installer hates to hear:"Although I'd have been peering over your shoulder the whole time..""...looking to save some money." Seriously though, I think most of us DIY'ers would like access to Composer not so much to save money but because:We enjoy the satisfaction of doing it ourselves and the control it affords us.We also don't want to be at the mercy of some company that:may or may not be very good at installing this system or just don't care (and we can't know the answer to this for sure until they have our money).doesn't respond to problems with the system.doesn't want to bother when we want to add just a few components. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slemay Posted October 28, 2007 Share Posted October 28, 2007 AJF - I feel your pain and am sorry you (and some others) have had bad experiences with some dealers. You are right that that would sour the pot for me too. I can understand where some dealers will say, you "MUST" use product X... as we too have had times where we've accepted jobs with product X and to automate it has been nothing but a nightmare... plus, it's really hard to "learn" a new product while on the job site trying to install it. Heck... I've done jobs for friends before and regretted it - some hardware automates well - somes just doesn't automate... and there is nothing more embarrassing for the installer (and even for Control4) when some technology just doesn't work as it should (typically the cheaper the product - the worse it is to automate - though there are some exceptions - Apex comes to mind... but that's an entirely different story).As for us - I don't mind them looking over my shoulder or even trying to do a lot of it themselves, just realize, I charge by the hour and if I have to spend 3 hours going through just "LOOKING" at the system to understand what was done, before I can even fix it or correct it - I'm still billing for that 3 hours... and that's where end users get upset... they feel dealers should only bill for the fix and it's not as simple as that. Again - experience teaches you a lot and it's certainly not that as "dealers" we feel high and mighty and want to charge for everything to the end user... trust me we don't... I enjoy this stuff too much!!! But our time is valuable and moving from job to job etc... what I can do in 1 hour, it may take a hobbiest 4 hours to accomplish the same thing.Scott was telling me the other day that his old dealer would charge him $50 PER ITEM to identify a few new items into his system REMOTELY - that's ridiculous - but it's obvious that dealer didn't want to have anything more to do with that customer - and that's the shame. Oh well - I'm off on a rant I guess... it all boils down to research and find a good dealer - build a relationship with them and you should enjoy a great future together... that's our model - try to build a relationship with all of our customers always... doesn't always work - but we do a great job at it (or so I think) - plus that's why we refuse to open a "RETAIL" storefront - it works for some... but I feel it takes away from the customer building processes as you're too busy working from job to job to pay attention to a customer and really understand them for the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hike Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 Pardon my stream of consciousness post.I am an end user that adopted C4 early on when I was designing my new house. But I was on a budget and bought into the sales pitch that C4 was an affordable solution. I knew if I could DIY the system to what extent I could and later have a dealer fill in the gaps that I could get what I wanted. (I have aptitude but am not a technology pro)C4 seemed "right" for me only because I found a dealer that allowed me to have Composer Pro. Otherwise I was leaning towards Cortexa. I won't share it with others. I refused to install thousands of dollars of equipment in my dream house and not have complete control over it. I refused to be a hostage to anyone’s business model. This was before the dawn of Composer HE of course. I did my own structured wiring, bought my equipment through a C4 dealer that, at that time, was allowed to sell me Composer Pro, and installed it all myself.There was much trial and error. I got a reasonable working system up and running. I tried to get the original dealer that sold me my gear and gave me Composer to help me finish the install but things never worked out logistically.I called in Cytexone to tighten up, fill in the gaps etc.After many emails...Cytexone and I set up a date.Dan and Andrew showed up in their zip car after getting utterly lost in Bergen County, NJ. After 2 days....They completely re-worked my network and made it much more stable.They corrected programming mistakes, wired up my AV components, were very generous of their knowledge andfollowed up with corrections and more importantly "taught me how to fish".Were they cheap? Nope! You ever rent in Manhattan?But I thanked them and paid them promptly and will use them again when I add a security system.Is my system perfect? No, because of the mistakes I made. But that's ok. I know it inside out, upside down. I tweak it constantly; I add equipment (yes I even bought something on ebay! gasp!). I feel like I am in control...and I should. It's MY house. If I had to call someone to add one switch I would be rather annoyed and I am not so sure a dealer as busy as Cytexone wouldn't be annoyed either. I will say that I have contacted dozens of dealers in my area and that communication is at best spotty.If I had to rely on the C4 dealer network I would tear it out of the walls of my home if I did not have Composer Pro.Composer HE is a step in the right direction. I have no problem paying for the software but of course if I buy $10,000-$15,000 in hardware you would think it could be thrown in. I just don't know why not allow the customer a chance to install new equipment such as a lightswitch, dimmer, keypad, etc. It's seems to be very straightforward. Installing contacts, relays, MC's, HTC's etc I can see requiring dealer involvement but why not give the customer the choice? If I screw it up the dealer gets to clean up my mess and get billable hours. I know I am assuming risk. I'm a grown man, well educated and I want control over my environment. That's why I bought a home automation system in the first place.I love my system and I really appreciate the dealers on this forum.Excuse me now....I am going to plan out my new doorbell set up...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seefour Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 Pardon my stream of consciousness post.I am an end user that adopted C4 early on when I was designing my new house. But I was on a budget and bought into the sales pitch that C4 was an affordable solution. I knew if I could DIY the system to what extent I could and later have a dealer fill in the gaps that I could get what I wanted. (I have aptitude but am not a technology pro).............I recently had the need to add new hardware and reconfigure old, beyond what I can do with Composer HE that I own. It took ages to get my dealer to do this remotely. The frustrating thing, after the e-mails asking my dealer to kindly make my system a priority, it came down to me standing at home tapping a keypad for the system to recognise the new/reconfigured hardware....in seconds.....more time spent writing impatient e-mails than on the phone tapping keypads!!! It is so trivial to add switches, dimmers now, I cannot see why the end user cannot have the ability to do that, especially after spending $$$. It is unreasonable to have to wait a disproportional amount of time to get on a dealers radar to do this. I want to make changes fast.Control4 do consider giving the end users the option. I would like to have the right to amend my system (beyond HE) and not have to wait for my dealer to do so, especially if it involves pulling teeth. I am still going to be buying lots of hardware from the dealer. Consider also leveling the playing field - some dealers seem to be OK providing customers with Composer Pro, others do not, and it is a disadvantage to be in an area where you are in the latter bucket.Of course, I would encourage everyone who has a bad experience with a dealer to notify Control4 immediately. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slemay Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 Seefour - I agree 100%... let C4 know about bad dealers and hopefully they will weed them out. I know they recently changed their dealer agreements and re-worded a lot of the contracts, I believe in an attempt to clean up the bad apples that were brought on board as dealers. I only see this being an improvement going forward. As for finding dealers that will allow you to have Composer Pro - I think you're going to find it much harder, as C4 is now actively notifying dealers that this is a BIG NO NO, as well as it is also very clearly spelled out in all the new contracts. Furthermore - I'm hearing rumors that the "Pro" version is going the route that the "HE" version went - that is "ACTIVATION" -it was once there, but taken out as it was too buggy... I think they've got the bugs worked out of it and now it'll "marry" the copy to the dealer, so dealers will be held VERY accountable. Again - as I mentioned above, it's a REAL shame that a deal can't log in remotely into a system to help that end user out by simple "tagging / identifying" a new piece of hardware... Oh well... I've rambled on more than long enough on this topic and my view of it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derickson1472 Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 Maybe a few baby steps are needed to make everyone happy....I think if Home Edition allowed you to add lights, and keypads that would take care of 95% of the comments on this thread. These take dealers less than about 1 minute to add, if you are then doing the programming in Home Edition.This lets end users quicly add a light switches if they want to, with no harm to anyone...and does not waste the dealers time and scheduling trouble.Leave all the other stuff to the dealers, but add in a few simple things for the end user.Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lvs Posted October 29, 2007 Share Posted October 29, 2007 They are somewhat like an if statement, but instead of saying "If the light is on, turn on the music" you would say "While the light in on, the music is on" and the music is ALWAYS on while the light is. You could also say, while the music gene That's a very broad example, but Loops can be very powerful while writing actual programs. Its something that keep repeating a command until the condition stop the loop.Has anyone used a loop for anything significant in Composer, and if so, what? I'd be interested to see their usefulness, because I haven't found a need for one over an if statement yet.I used a loop for monitoring a garage door, since I needed to exit the script if the garage door closes manually. Since there is no discrete open/close there is still a very small window that when the time expires the door may be in the process of closing and the sensor still indicates it is open. If this happens, the garage door will stop part of the way closed, hence the email sent that it may still be open. Instead of sending the email you could toggle the button 2 more times but there is always a chance of user intervention. Now garage doors with discrete open/close commands would make this much easier and 99.9% reliable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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