HomevisionXL 2.0 Beta
This is a beta version for HomeVisionXL 2.0 (and therefor labeled version 2.0bX).I invite friendly users to give the software a try and report all issues they find back to me. Because there are likely to be some bugs left in the software after the overhaul since version 1.15, I suggest all betatesters to make a backup of their schedule before starting to make changes with the new software. On the other hand, I have been using the new software myself for some time already, so it should be reasonably safe to use.
Requirements
On the HomeVisionXL beta download page you can find versions of the software for Linux, Windows (should work on at least '98, 2000, XP and Vista), and Mac (both PPC and Intel).
Changes
At first glance there may not appear to be very many changes in HomeVisionXL 2.0 to justify a change of the major version number. It looks a bit different and there are some new features, but nothing really shocking. However, under the hood a lot has changed to make some of those new features possible. In addition almost all packages the software depends on have been upgraded to their latest versions:-
Tcl/Tk: from 8.4.X to 8.5.2
Tbcload: from 1.4 to 1.7
Tile: from 0.7.8 to 0.8.2
Tablelist: from 4.2 to 4.8
Tooltip: from 1.5 to 1.11
Itcl: from 3.3 to 3.4
- Using much better looking anti-aliased fonts under Linux.
- Much better fitting appearance under Windows Vista.
- Better looking graphics through the addition of PNG support.
- The preferences screen contains many more user configurable settings.
- GUI style can be changed in a running application, no need to restart.
- Features not supported by the installed homevision PROM are disabled.
- Improved control of IR transmit zones from the Infrared toolbox.
- Plug-in wizard improvements for keeping the installed plug-ins up-to-date.
- Improvements to the download process after failure or abort by the user.
- Allow the user to add notes to a schedule.
- Colored bars indicating the If/Then nesting levels.
- Partial redesign of the X-10 control screen.
- Create output in Adobe PDF format for printing and archiving.
- Various other small improvements and bug fixes.
Installation
The HomeVisionXL application consist of a single executable file. "Installation" is done by simply downloading the file and saving it to disk. That's all. You can start the application by clicking or double-clicking the file or whatever it is you need to do to execute a program in your specific operating system.On *nux the program will automatically pick up the configuration settings of any old HomeVision-XL version you may have used in the past. On Windows you may want to copy the homevision.ini to the same directory where you placed the homevision.exe file.
Please report any bugs, quirks, hickups and other issues and suggestions to me:
Schelte Bron
