Toy program using c4soap

[Cheeso]

Hey, just dropping this here.

http://cheesoexamples.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=C4MovieLister

It's a program written in C# that uses c4soap to communicate to the Director, and produce a printable list of all the movies on all the disc changers registered with Director.

screenshot.

Very basic. Just a proof-of-concept really, of using c4soap. Requires Windows, and .NET 3.5.

Maybe someone is interested.

I have some other toy tools as well.

here's a screen shot of another tool, just as an example.

[pstuart]

Um, think u uploaded the wrong project, it downloads something called Tweetit, not the app you describe above or in the codeplex site.

[CFUG]

Look below his notes- it's there

[Cheeso]

I regret the confusion with the downloads.

There are several downloads on that site, only one of them, at the moment, is a C4 sample.

The "default" download is "TweetIt", which is probably not interesting to anyone here.

The direct download link for the C4 movie lister is http://cheesoexamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/75676

[Cheeso]

FYI:

in my spare time, I'm planning to produce another little tool that produces a searchable list of movies. It will look like the 2nd screenshot I posted above, but will be searchable. Type a few letters of the title, the director's name, a name from the cast, and it will filter the list of displayed movies accordingly.

I'll also add in the possibility to play the movie from the resulting filtered list, in the room desired.

I know it's possible already to do these things with the C4 tools (C4 home, or whatever it's called) that you can license from the dealer. This is just a little toy to make it possible to do it from any PC on the network, without needing to register a new device, pay a license fee, etc.

[RyanE]

Cheeso,

If you run into difficulty trying to get your app to play the title you wish, let me know.

RyanE

[alanchow]

FYI ComposerME is free and does just this. Good little proof of concept though.

[tebery]

FYI ComposerME is free and does just this. Good little proof of concept though.

Can Composer ME/HE compose a list of all movies on all changers and NAS?

I was unable to find anything in HE

Thanks!

[Cheeso]

@alanchow - I'm aware of ComposerME.

I had a problem because the Director I'm using has over 550 movies. One thing I wanted to do was generate and display or print a list of all those movies, sorted by title, year, or genre. The first app does that.

Another thing I wanted to do: easily search for all movies starring Mark Wahlberg, or all movies directed by Clint Eastwood, for example.

I couldn't find an easy way to do either of these things in ComposerME .

The app I'm putting together now does the 2nd thing: it allows you to type in "East" and get the list of all the Eastwood movies. Tick the proper boxes and it will display the movies he directed, or the movies he starred in, or both.

@RyanE - I think the general idea is to send the ROOM to select the movie media, and then play it, right? Maybe like this (assumes the room id is 5 and the movie id is 173):

  <c4soap name="SendToDevice" async="False">
    <param name="iddevice" type="number">5</param>
    <param name="data" type="string">
      <devicecommand>
        <command>SELECT_VIDEO_MEDIA</command>
        <params>
          <param>
            <name>mediaid</name>
            <value type="string">
              <static>173</static>
            </value>
          </param>
          <param>
            <name>type</name>
            <value type="string">
              <static>MOVIE</static>
            </value>
          </param>
        </params>
      </devicecommand>
    </param>
  </c4soap>

  <c4soap name="SendToDevice" >
    <param type="number" name="iddevice">5</param>
    <param type="string" name="data">
      <devicecommand>
        <command>PLAY</command>
        <params>
        </params>
      </devicecommand>
    </param>
  </c4soap>

[Cheeso]

Hmm, before selecting the video media, I first needed to do this:

  <c4soap name="SendToDevice" async="False" seq="1170">
    <param name="iddevice" type="number">5</param>
    <param name="data" type="string">
      <devicecommand>
        <command>SELECT_VIDEO_DEVICE</command>
        <params>
          <param>
            <name>deviceid</name>
            <value type="INT">
              <static>25</static>
            </value>
          </param>
          <param>
            <name>devicegroup</name>
            <value type="STRING">
              <static>watch</static>
            </value>
          </param>
        </params>
      </devicecommand>
    </param>
  </c4soap>

The above assumes the room ID is 5 and the id of the disc changer is 25.

[Cheeso]

Using c4soap, there are interesting opportunities to build an app for the ipad or Android that does the search and play stuff. I don't have a Mac, though, so I can't build apps for the apple devices. And I don't have an android phone, so that's out too. The existing Control4 apps are a little klunky when you want to search, so I expect someone to do that - maybe they already have and I just don't know about it. For anyone writing an app, maybe they can use the code I wrote.

Another cool idea is to integrate the stuff I've done with a speech SDK, to allow natural language control of the system, like Apple's Siri. "Director? Play Matrix Reloaded in the Family room!" I'm not very far off from that right now. .NET has a speech API that would make that possible.

The point of sharing the source of these apps is to show how c4soap works, to let people develop what they can imagine.

[RyanE]

Doesn't look like you need much help.

RyanE

[wingzz]

I have to ask, how do you run the program, I tried it in a web page but had no luck

[zaphod]

@Cheeso:

How would you change the state of a C4 boolean variable using C4SOAP?

What version of C4 are you using?

[Mongo]

Ha! Beverly Hills Ninja! One of those movies that just ends up in your collection. You never really mean to add it.

Also - What is c4Soap?

Man, I wish i knew how the code/coding works for C4, I would love to do some of this stuff.