Problems with Touchscreen:

The main stumbling block currently is the channel groupings. When a Logic Group is created on the dimmer modules (and we have at least one group using channels from more than one dimmer) the Touchscreen cannot access either those groups nor the individual channels within them. So no control whatever can be had over those channels, save for through the bus couplers and mechanical switches which seem to be able to work the logic groups just fine.

It is not plausible for us to break up the Logic Groups in this application - obviously one solution is to group the channels by setting them as scenes in the touchscreen which we can only get to work if the channels do not belong to a Logic Group - but then the bus-coupler switches could only address individual channels and we need them to switch groups of channels or there would be hundreds of switches in the walls. And the bus couplers cannot access the Scenes in the touchscreen even though the scenes have Group numbers associated with them.

One possibility is that the Groups are in different Applications, but I did try several combinations, none of which seemed to make any difference. Plus, the Application lists in each of the devices (touchscreen and dimmers) were different, so it seems to me thast these are not being shared either.

Other, incidental annoyances we have found are that the Touchscreen font rendering is apalling. I thought at first that I had just used too small a font (8 point I think) but the opening screen at start up has the same problem (uses the same or smaller fonts) so maybe our screen is bust? I can't see the makers using a font that doesn't work.

Finally the buscouplers will allow individual channels to be grouped locally ('Blocks'), which would go someway to solving our grouping problem except that you can only group output channels already assigned to a switch channel in that coupler .. very limiting indeed. If this allowed multiple outputs to be assigned to each switch we would be home and dry, albeit still a workaround (why can't the touchscreen address the logic groups????)

Cheers

 

In regard to the touchscreen fonts......
Make sure you have 'ClearType' turned off in your PC's desktop properties. Right click on your desktop, select 'Properties' then under the 'Appearance' tab click on the 'Effects...' button. If ClearType is selected, turn it off, download your project to the touchscreen again and your problem should be solved...

 

I realy tried but have to admit failure, I have no idea what you are tring to achieve, could you go back a couple of steps and tell a stupid old fool what functions you require.

 

Are you using C-Bus V2 or Toolkit to program the network, and what version of C-touch software are you using.
If you are using toolkit you will need to export the project to V2.
It appears to me that you have not selected the relevant C-bus project in your C-touch software. Hence the tags are not being seen and you are forced to try and figure out how to make the c-touch operate the group address using numeric values only.

 

I am using Toolkit for this project. Are you seriously telling me the formats are not compatible??

You are suggesting I can somehow incorporate the configuration from V2 into the CTouch project, which would make sense .. haven't done many touchscreens so this is showing the large gaps in what I know about it but I am not encouraged in its usability so far (and I have two decades of experience in embedded system programming). Let's see what we can do with it next week, and thanks for your help

Mike @ HA

 

Ummm... they are 2 generational different products. The V2 format database has been around for over 5 years and products have grown, we needed to update the database format. You can't expect things not to change forever. Toolkit uses a much more flexable and pwerfull storage format.

Toolkit supports importing and exporting V2 format databases to maintain compatiablity with existing projects and older software.

We believe this to be a reasonable change, and due to the fact that this is the noraml for virtually every software product on Earth, probably quite expected. In fact we go beyond most products as we allow you to revert a project backwards to the old format and most software products only upgrade versions.

With regards to the C-Touch programming software it still requires that you use V2 format as the updated version of the software has not been released. We are expecting to release that real soon now and then it will talk direct to the Tookit format. Ofcourse it will open and upgrade existing projects, add new features and be completely free.