Rich “rjh” over at HomeSeer has posted a survey for plugin developers revealing some nifty (technical) information regarding the upcoming HomeSeer 3.
API functions removed from HS3
AddAction
AddCondtion
CAPIHandleStatus
ClearConditions
ClearLastX10
ControlThermostat
DeviceStatus
DialInternetConnection
DisconnectInternetConnection
ExecX10ByName
ExecX10NoLog
ExecX10 // CAPI interface should be used instead
GetEventEnumerator
GetEvent // replaced with GetEventEx
GetTVGTData
lastx10
NewCondition
NewEventAction
NewEventEx
NewEventGetRef
PrintOut
PrintOutRaw
RunningAsService
SetDeviceLastChange
SetDeviceStatus
SetDeviceStatusByName
X10InterfaceStatus (more details on the survey page)
Device control / Device status functions removed?
All you need to do is add a device value pair that matches your old status (like ON=1, Off=0), and you have your old device status. Devices now use value pairs for all status and we have a new editor where you can edit the pairs as well as the graphics assigned to all values. It is a lot cleaner. If you worked with CAPI in HS2, this is the new API for device control and device status.
COM support
Support for COM is removed, so no COM based plugins will work (HS 1.7 plugins).
Linux support
Linux support is accomplished under MONO, so as long as your plugin is pure .NET, it should work under MONO on Linux. Make sure you install all of MONO, including the VisualBasic.Compatibility dll.
To check your plugin, just load into the MOMA application and it will tell you which functions are not supported. Getting MOMA to clear your plugin is a good first step to getting Linux compatible. (MOMA runs under Windows so Linux is not needed). You can ignore the late binding errors as they should not be a problem.
Scripts
Currently, VBScript still works in HS3 (Windows only) and I may leave it in for now, maybe only for a while and then remove it later. The scripting API will have changes though so many scripts will still need to be modified. Also, VBScript’s won’t work at all on Linux so the downside of leaving it there is confusion for the user. Any VB.NET scripts are supported on the Linux platform.
UI
ASP.NET is still supported (and supported on Linux). Old classic asp will not be supported since it will not work on Linux (it relied on the VBScript engine). We do have new API’s for building web pages that include a robust collection of screen elements that are Jquery based. This allows for dynamic HTML5 web pages.
Source thread
HS3 survey sticky thread
HS3 survey for plugin developers
HS3 development FAQ
Feel free to re-read some of the previous HS3 buzz.
