Owner's Manual (Complete)

The Home Control Assistant
1
Chapter 12
Scripts
In previous chapters, Home Modes, the Visual Programmer and the Visual Scheduler were covered
in detail. These three tools allow for the creation of sophisticated automation solutions.
However if you are looking for more complexity in programming and decision making, HCA
provides for the inclusion of text based scripts that are used as an adjunct to Visual Programs.
What scripting languages are supported? HCA supports any script engine that can use a type
library. This means that common ones like VBScript and JavaScript are supported as well as the
less common ones like WebBuilder.
What can a script do and how does it do it? HCA provides a rich object model with many methods
available for each object. This is all documented in the HCA Object Model appendix to this user
guide.
This chapter focuses on how you configure HCA to work with text based scripts, the Visual
Programmer Script element, and some thoughts on how scripts are best used.
This is a complex topic! Writing scripts is a true programmer activity and, unlike Visual
programs, doesn’t have a friendly environment to work in. Included in the HCA installation are
script examples you may want to look at prior to starting any of your own.
NOTE: This feature is only available in HCA Plus and does not function in HCA Standard or HCA
Limited.
Script setup
Before you can begin using scripts you first must configure HCA for what script engine and editor
to use. To do press the
Scripting button in the ribbon Design category.