C-Bus "Scene Module"

Simple question:

What is the "Scene Module" referred to in the C-Gate reference documentation under the SCENE command?

(Bonus, somewhat harder question: Is there a way to create/edit scenes in a wall switch using commands via C-Gate?)

 

The scene module allows you to create scenes within c-gate. You enable it by setting use-scenes=yes in the config files and creating a scene directory under c-gate. Then you can create scene files in this directory using a text editor that c-gate will acess using it's scene command. It's all in the C-gate user manual.(Not the Sever manual in the c-gate2 directory. Just search google for Cgate user manual). This is in theory. I've never actually tried it

In theory Yes, because Toolkit does it. In practice No because it's not documented.

 

I've just Googled for CGate user manual without success, do you have a link?

Shame!

If my goal is to be able to define scenes programatically (from outside TK and other Clipsal tools), and have them triggered by switches and touch screens throughout a building, is the scene module the right option, or is there something better?

At the moment I have switches setting group addresses that I see change via C-Gate, from which I then load a list of group addresses and target levels from a database and send the levels individually back via C-Gate. Not exactly seamless and I'd like to use any in-built scene capability that exists if possible.

 

Here is the link:

http://updates.clipsal.com/ClipsalOnline/Files/Brochures/W0000362.pdf

I had a go at getting it to work but without success. I either get BAD ADDRESS errors for the PLAY groups, or OPERATION NOT SUPPORTED if I leave out the play group.

I don't really think there is anything wrong with your current method. I would be surprised if c-gate wasn't smart enough to join all the individual commands into a single message.

How many scenes are you talking about?

 

Thanks!

Hmm, OK, that's not a good sign! Thanks for taking the time to explore though.

Well several dozen (maybe a couple of hundred across the site, up to hundred group addresses in some of them).

The problem isn't performance as such (although that's not great). It's that there are lots of points of potential failure; if my monitoring of C-Gate breaks, or the database breaks, etc, then the scenes don't work. And if there's standard functionality that someone else is maintaining then it seems daft not to use it.

It doesn't sound all that maintained at the moment though