So for the past three days I have been working hard on stuff for xlights and this is how things are looking so far. (btw I ditched the idea of making a command line program for testing it was starting to get more cumbersome to work with then just making a simple GUI to test with)
I updated xMenue to hold spots for channel Mappings, and Launch xConsole.
Channel Mapping will auto generate default values for you based off networks.
All networks on on a droop down so you can only select networks loaded in the system.
Channels and names can be made what ever the use decides to enter
All the data is stored in an XML file like network data is in the users working directory.
At this point unless some one finds bugs in the changes to xMenue I would call the changes complete for now (I can see a few usability improvements being made to channel mappings down the road but I don't see it being worth it to make those additions now since they will actually only limit our ability to test the system (I just feel the system may just be a bit to open ended and may confusion some people))
xConsole is the newest program to xLights. This program will be used at first for setting up groups, and effects, testing groups, effects, and virtual channels. Eventually I would like to see xConsole be turned in a to a software console capable of controlling a live light show.
Currently xConsole has an interface and the base code for controlling the hardware in place.
My next project will be getting xConsole to make use of the virtual channel mappings.
Out side of my work Matt is working on making improvements to the scheduler.
Matt is going to try to have his changes committed by Jan 1st and then I will try to have all my changes merged in by Jan5th with a working console for testing virtual channels.
Also Matt and I are in talks about how we can make the API more useful.
So 2011 is not even here yet and looks like we already have allot of stuff in devlopment for xlights for 2011