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App Control :
This feature was requested by user, and it turned out to be not too difficult to
add, so I added it.
App Control lets you 'control' other running applications from X10Dispatcher.
Most all applications have menus and buttons and due to the way in which Windows
works, these menu items and buttons have codes. If you know those codes you
can send them to that program and it thinks the menu or button has been pressed.
As an example, X10Dispatcher already has codes for Windows Media Player, so you
could configure an X10 Remote to be a 'Windows Media Player Remote'. Most
of the commands (play/pause, fast forward/rewind, next song/prev song, volume up/down,
etc) are available AppControl actions within X10Dispatcher. So you create
X10Dispatch triggers tied to X10Remote commands and specify that App Control Action
when setting up that trigger. If you make the trigger 'hardwired' it will
execute that action even when not armed (while you are around the house).
Now you load Windows Media Player and leave it running in the background so that
X10Dispatcher can 'poke' it with commands. (Alternatively, you could set up
one of the remote buttons to 'Run Program' to launch it for the first time, so subsequent
AppControl commands have their target program loaded). Now whenever you press
that remote button, your corresponding Application Features are invoked. This feature
works fairly well but due to the nature of X10 and Remotes, it takes about a second
for the command to be 'heard'.
While it is a little tricky figuring out what those codes are, I (and others X10Dispatch
users) have already gathered codes for some of the more major applications.
Some of the applications which X10Dispatcher is already programmed with include
Windows Media Player, Winamp, Yahoo Music Player (courtesy of Nate), and Windows
Dialer (thanks Tuicemen). I intend to add X10Dispatcher itself to that list,
since that would add the ability to Disable/Enable Sounds, Shutdown X10Dispatcher,
View your X10Dispatcher webserver, and whatever else... all from an X10 Remote,
trigger, or macro.
Advanced users can figure out codes for other applications by following the tutorial
here.