Brief overview ?

[muddymickey]

Hi

Would it be possible for someone to write a brief summary of the Client software ?

An overview of the basics, EG:
- What it does
- What hardware is needed to run it
- What OS is needed to run it
- How does it connect to Comfort (eg interface types & cabling requirements) - some basic topology examples
- Does Comfort Client software need the Comfort Server software, or are they unrelated ?

I\'m very interested in getting access to Comfort via the web, and while the CWM would undoubtedly be ideal, unfortunately there\'s no way I personally can justify stumping up that kind of cash (I suspect many others are in the same boat too).

I suspect quite a few people would be interested in this, but if like me they only discovered it by accidentally stumbling into this part of the forum, it\'s not immediately obvious what the features are and how it all hooks together. Well not to me anyway

There\'s a fair number of UK Comfort users on the Yahoo UK_Selfbuild and UKha_d groups, you might find some interest among people on there but I suggest there is some introductory guide put together before \"advertising\" it.

Cheers
Lee

PS Is there any hope of this running on Linux or would it have to be Windows based ?

[juwi_uk]

Hi Lee,

Briefly then, and a real braindump.

An overview of the basics, EG:
- What it does

Perhaps the best way is to liken it to the Cytech WizComfort product but with graphical interface.  I tried to use Wizcomfort in it\'s current version but found too many problems so decided to write my own based on some initial code that Giltrow produced (which was hardcoded to his solution).   A good place to start is with the Help file which is in Windows CHM format so you can just double-click it to open it like other Windows help.  Basically the user interface is in 2 parts;  the righthandside is generic so will work with any Comfort II system straight apon running.   The lefthandside is where the graphical part comes in;  there\'s a Floorplan Editor included to create these.  You dont actually draw the shapes in the Client Editor, you do that in some external application of your choice (Visio, Paint etc) and you drop these BMP/JPG (etc) images onto the plan to form your floorplan. You can move them about and scale them etc and also then configure how they interact with Comfort.  For example a light bulb on my examples can show on/off states reported by Comfort,  you can click on them if setup (I call these \'Click Responses\') to fire a Response in Comfort and also attach sounds as well.  Zone responses can do something; I use to change backgound colour of the room monitored etc.  More on this in the manual.   You can have more than one Window (say for Floor 1, Floor 2 etc) and you can also have browser tabs (use these for IP cameras to show camera feeds) and any other sort of Browser-based management UI you can think of;  all of this is maintained through Window Manager.  Screenshots of the sorts of things you can do in the forum thread.

- What hardware is needed to run it

Whatever runs the OS below.

- What OS is needed to run it

It\'s a Windows .NET 3.5 application so any Windows version that runs that;  been tested on XP, Vista and Windows 7 so far.


- How does it connect to Comfort (eg interface types & cabling requirements) - some basic topology examples

Use a UCM05 with an Eth01 daughtercard.  I dont support USB or Serial interfaces as this was developed as a network application.   Giltrows Server app allows more than one connection if you have for example multiple touch screens.


- Does ComfortClient software need the Comfort Server software, or are they unrelated ?

See above;  only if you want more than one connection to Comfort as the UCM only supports 1 concurrent connection at a time.


As for Linux support you\'ve more chance of seeing a flying pig as that\'s not my area of expertise let alone the fact that I dont believe .NET is hosted on Linux! 


Regards

Julian