Owner's Manual (Complete)

The Home Control Assistant 1
Chapter 10
Programs and the Visual Programmer
Once you have created your HCA design, with devices and groups, schedules and schedule entries,
you may want to take the next step and create programs to help control your home. The Home
Control Assistant makes it easy for you to create programs by using two different tools, the New
Program Wizard, and the Visual Programmer.
HCA programs are very capable. They provide the novice with a method of constructing simple
sequenced programs: do this, do this, do that, done. The New Program Wizard makes it easy to
begin a program, and the Visual Programmer provides a user interface that eliminates the need for
a programming language with all its inherent difficulties. HCA also provides the ability to
introduce conditionals into programs, thus allowing the sophisticated user to create more complex
programs.
This chapter discusses both these tools, and includes these sections:
 Terminology
 Using the New Program Wizard
 Opening the Visual Programmer
 Areas of the Visual Programmer
- Tool palette
- Element list
- Control buttons
- Snippet Wizard
 Working with the programming canvas
- About connecting elements
 Triggers
- X10 Reception triggers
- Insteon triggers
- UPB triggers
- Magic Module triggers
- Wireless triggers
- Global Cache Sensor Triggers
- Weather triggers
- Flag triggers
- Expression triggers
- Special condition triggers
- How are triggers evaluated
 Setting properties for program elements
- Elements
 Constructing programs
- Test
- Repeat