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bmwragtop
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Joined: March 30 2008
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| Posted: March 14 2009 at 17:03 | IP Logged
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Hi,
I have seen examples in this forum on having PH respond to messages from webcamXP. I am trying to do the opposite.
I am attempting to send messages to webcamXP to start/stop recording and such. The webcamXP documentation lists the command values to use, and I have been able to determine the window handle using ph_findwindow().
But, webcamXP does not seem to respond to any of the commands and ph_sendmsg is returning 0.
I am also using the free single user flavor of webcamXP.
Has anyone tried to control webcamXP from PH? If so, can someone post a snippet of code they used?
Thanks!
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logbuilder
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| Posted: March 15 2009 at 22:53 | IP Logged
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Wow, I'm hoping you get a good reply to this since I am also interested. I am smack dab in the middle of an integration of webcamxp and powerhome for security monitoring. I'm making a lot of progress but have run into a couple of challenges.
First, when my furnace turns on, it makes warm clouds in front of one of the cameras which is thought to be motion. Webcam starts capturing pictures like crazy. I am pretty sure I can make powerhome know about the furnace starting up. It would then be great if I could send a message to webcamxp to stop motions on that camera.
Second, the outside cameras have IR but to be honest, it is not that great at illuminating things. It seems the thing it picks up most is when rain drips in front of the cameras. My belief is that the IR really reflects off those close by drops and that is detected as motion. I'd like to use the dawn and dusk features in powerhome to further control webcamxp.I've even thought of putting one of the new leak sensors outside to detect when it is raining and turn off the motion detection on the cameras. I'm in western WA so we get a fair amount of rain. Again, that would require me to send wabcamxp a message from powerhome.
Lastly, since the IR is so bad at night and I get very little motion detection of any use, I am thinking of moving more to insteon motion detection. I have one installed on my porch and it is working well. I am thinking of putting one at my driveway entrance. If I sense motion, then powerhome could send webcamxp a message to start capturing photos.
So it is becoming more and more complex to get things tuned in but it is a fun challenge. Being able to control webcamxp from powerhome would be a welcome addition.
Robert
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bmwragtop
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| Posted: March 24 2009 at 20:09 | IP Logged
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Hi Robert,
I have been e-mailing back and forth with one of the webcamXP developers, and I have just started to be able to control webcamXP with my own program. Now I need to see if I can get PH to control webcamXP directly through sendmessage, or if I need to write a plugin.
At this point, it seems webcamXP responds to the PostMessage windows messaging function, but appears to not respond to the SendMessage function that PH supports. According to the developer, SendMessage should work, so I am going to spend some more time debugging.
As far as I can see, you can control most major webcamXP functions through messaging.
-Tom
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logbuilder
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| Posted: March 24 2009 at 20:59 | IP Logged
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Tom,
I am assuming that you have the doc on webcamxp. I got mine from here:
http://www.darkwet.net/private/webcamxp5.pdf
In reading about it in Appendix E, it doesn't seem as though you can control individual camera actions. In the scheduler function, you can specify a source number (camera) that the action is to be performed on. Do you think that could be done via messaging or is it just actions that would effect all sources. As an example, I have insteon motion detectors. When those go off, I need to tell the cameras that are around that motion detector to capture (WM_USER+3152). Seems like I could only tell all cameras to capture. That is not a show stopper. Just wanting to make sure I understand the limitations.
If you do get it working with PH controlling WCXP, let me know via this thread. Also, I just sent you a PM with my email. Feel free to contact me that way.
Robert
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bmwragtop
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Joined: March 30 2008
Location: United States
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Posts: 27
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| Posted: March 29 2009 at 13:24 | IP Logged
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Hi Robert,
Some initial good news for you. I still need to work out the details for the various messaged commands, but it does appear that at least some of them (record on/off and capture) allow you to specify the number of the camera to control.
I am beginning to play with creating the plugin to PH today. I probably won't have anything for you to try until next weekend, I would imagine.
-Tom
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PowerHome Messageboard : PowerHome Programming
Topic: Controlling webcamXP through ph_sendmsg?
