Version 2.80 posted on 04/20/2003

Version 2.80 was just uploaded to:

  http://misterhouse.sf.net/download.html
  http://misterhouse.net:81/download.html


New Features:

- Autrijus Tang created a new PAR.pm module which allows us to compile perl
scripts and libraries into one executable binary. If you are running with a
recent Linux which has a recent libc.so (ls -l /lib/libc.so* and look ver a
version > 2.2.93, like on RH 8 or higher) you can now try the new compiled
mhe file in misterhouse-2.80.linux.zip. This might be useful if you have
troubles with the above CPAN installs or if you have a older (or newer)
version of perl that has some sort of problem (e.g. memory leak).

- Created lib/X10_W800.pm to support the X10 RF -> serial W800 interface.
This is similar to the MR26, but also supports extended codes and has a
better range. Comparison between the 2 can be found here:
http://www.wgldesigns.com/comments.htm . Note: Extended codes are not yet
supported (I didn't have any RF devices that generated them).

- Created mh/code/common/x10_rf_relay.pl to relay selected X10 house codes
received from either of the X10 MR26 or W800 RF (Radio Frequency)
interfaces.

- Dree Mistrut created Text::LevenshteinXS module, like Text-Levenshtein,
but implemented in C rather than Perl, so it is much faster. If installed,
it will be used in the &phrase_match function, available as 'Smart command
search' on the ia5 search menu. This enables non-exact word matches, so for
example you can type 'bed light on' and it will match 'turn on bedroom
lights'. If this module is not installed, mh defaults to the previous
simple/fast function that matches on exact words. On linux, use the CPAN to
install (see install doc). On windows, it is installed in the mh libs for
5.6, but not 5.0 or 5.8 systems.

- Created bin/send_email. Tom Vanderpool was having problems when mh called
&net_mail_send to send email, so we created a stand alone command that can
be called as a background process. See 'Send test e mail 11' for and
example.

- David Norwood and I updated bin/get_tv_grid to be compatable with a new tv
listings format from zap2it.com.

- Brian Rudy added support for the iButton DS2450 Quad A/D converter.
Example in code/public/iButton_DS2450.pl.

- Neil Wrightson updated the iButton read_switch method in
lib/site/Hardware/iButton/Device.pm to allow either channel to be an input
or output.

- Jason Sharpe sent in code/publice/ivr.pl and ivr.menu as examples of his
DTFM Interactive Voice Response setup using the Stargate phone interface.
Updated supporting files are lib/Telephony_DTMF.pm, Telephony_Item.pm,
Stargate.pm, and StargateJTelephone.pm.

- Craig Schaeffer created lib/Telephony_Identifier.pm and
code/common/phone_identifier.pl for talking to the 2+ line
incoming/outgoing/DTFM Identifier phone line monitor from
http://www.yes-tele.com/mlm.html

- David Norwood created a preliminary interface for the USB-UIRT two way
infrared transceiver. Installing drivers on Windows, Linux and BSD requires
patches, so contact David for info. See USB_UIRT_learning.pl in the common
code selector for configuration details. David also updated the
UIRT2_learning web interface to allow generation of codes based on protocol,
device and function number.

- Ron Klinkien created a 'MisterHouse from Scratch' weblog site (a
collection of links, resources, notes and commentary) here:
http://mrhousefromscratch.tk .



Bug Fixes and Other Changes:

- Roger Bille updated Serial_Item.pm to allow for 'X...' strings in non-X10
items.

- Added a -state option to bin/mhsend to get the state of an object.

- Richard Phillips and Sean Walker posted docs/faq.html entry 3.4: How do
get Linux to play more than one sound at the same time

- Richard Phillips created code/public/mp3_control_x10.pl and
code/public/mh_restart.pl

- Peter Woodall noticed we did not have a xcmd_respond function, so
bin/house commands were not working.

- Piet Delaney added X10_Sensor motion and brightness options, in addition
to the existing MS13 option which detects both. See mh/docs/mh.html
X10_Sensor section for details and examples.

- Jason Sharpee sent web/bin/video_streamer.pl as an example of how to
display video from using the Linux streamer program.

- Andrew McLaren noticed the mh lib/site/File files were pretty down level.
The newer versions are not compatable with older perls, and it looks like
all versions of perl have those installed by default, so I deleted the
mh/lib/File modules. Not sure why we included them in the first place.


- Enabled setupsup for 5.8 win98 users.- Added a mh.ini html_wav_format parm
to control how the web server delivers TTS wav files. Options are bgsound
(default for Audrey), link (default for Netscape and Mozilla, frame (doesn't
seem to work very well), and embed (default for all others).

- Updated Geo::Weather to version 1.2.3 (used by public/weather_com.pl to
get data from weather.com).

- Sean Walker updated web/bin/photos.pl to allow for a mh.ini
photo_back_style parm, so you can specify style stuff like background color.

- Updated bin/set_password to honor the mh.ini password_file parm.

- Added mh.ini parm voice_cmd_response to control the default response to
voice triggered commands. The default is 'Ok, %HEARD%', where %HEARD% will
be replaced by the spoken phrase.

- Floyd Moore fixed bin/get_tv_grid so -provider has precedence
over -provider_name.

- Changed the default mh_pause sound in common/event_sounds.pl from
bird1.wav to none.

- James Martin discovered that linux Red Hat 9.0 perl 5.8 has a wierd bug
that causes mh not to parse code objects correctly. Really strange in the
same perl version is in RH 8.0 which works, and recompiling perl 5.8 on RH
9.0 also fixes the problem. We worked around this by changing a perl regex.

- Jeff Pagel noticed a duplicate file problem when using the -only_load
option, like we use with a mh proxy.

- Roger Bille noticed the recent 2.78 substate and multistate code (set
$test_set1 'on~2~random:on;repeat:on;play';) messed up with some he code
that he had that had Socket_Item data with some ~:; characters. To avoid
this, we added a Generic_Item states_overload method, which we set to 'off'
in Socket_Item, Serial_Item, and xAP_Items.pm.

- Added an optional iridium_brightness mh.ini parm (defaults to 0) so you
can allow for announcement of only brigher flares.


Bruce



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