Update 1/11/2016 After my Lumia 830 had it's encounter with the sidewalk past week and got a smashed screen, I decided to leave the Windows Phone user community :o .The recent news of MS not really focusing on WP anymore, or mainly for enterprise users + the tons of little features that WP users miss in their day-to-day apps + more and more appdevs not developing anymore for WP, makes the WP platform dying from my perspective.
I went for a relatively cheap Samsung Galaxy A3, which is my first encounter with Droid. Looking at the Droid apps out there... I honestly think my UWP had the nicest interface, so it might not be impossible that Ticz returns Android-style :)
Obviously, this means that the Ticz-UWP development has stopped, although I had great pleasure building it and getting feedback and implement fixes ! The code is still available on Github at https://github.com/hansworst24/Ticz for anyone who wants to take the project any further. The app will remain in the Windows Store as well.
Thank you all for using Ticz ! :)
Ticz is being developed primarily as a Windows 10 Mobile app, to control your devices/lights from Domoticz. Although Domoticz implements a powerful WebGUI, I had trouble using this on Windows 10 Mobile in combination with the Edge browser. My credentials weren't stored properly, so when I was outside my LAN, I always had to retype my credentials on the Login page. Long story short ; It took me too long before I was able to switch a light :)
As I had gained a little experience in programming for Windows Store with TV Head (control your TVHeadend server), I decided it might be best to write an App, instead of using the WebGUI. With the advantage of Universal Apps, and the support for Windows IoT on Raspberry Pi2's I also saw it as a nice goal to see if the same App could be run as a (wall-mounted) "Control Panel". The support for Windows 10 on Desktops/Tablets is automatically implemented.
Ticz will only implement the basic primary tasks of controlling Domoticz devices. It should remain as light-weight as possible, but allow you to do all primary tasks when 'on the road'. Most features to control Domoticz are implemented now.
Version v1.9.2.0 supports all main features of Domoticz, including ; Devices / Camera's / Charts / Security Panel / Variables
Although primarily targeting Windows 10 Mobile, the app works perfectly fine (and much faster :) ) on Windows 10 Desktop/Tablet.
Version v1.9.2.0 of Ticz works fine on a RPi2 running Windows IoT, although some operations obviously require more time (i.e. rendering). I currently run a RPi2 with a Chalk-Elec 7" 1280x800 IPS Touch panel, and it supports 'true' touch (not mouse emulation). Windows IoT doesn't support a soft-keyboard yet, so when setting up the app you'll need a keyboard too.
All standard devices are as far as I know supported and working properly. There might be specific devices (think about thermostats or other stuff) that I was not able to test in any way, not even with virtual devices. If you have such devices, and they don't work properly in Ticz, let me know and with your help in sending over some device information I can add them !
Because Ticz can be used on both mobile/tablet/PC screens, it would be nice if we can choose the way the Devices are shown. This is handled through the Room Layout option.
Icon View : The most basic view for your Devices. No additional information is shown apart from basic info in the Footer. The icon handles On/Off switching or in case of non-switchable devices, asks Domoticz for an update for the device. All devices are grouped as within Domoticz itself, and the order of the devices cannot be changed, but should reflect the order within Domoticz. Devices are made slightly wider or smaller in order to fit nicely on the screen.
List View : Provides Wide-View Devices in a List format, using the complete screen width.
Grid View : Provides a 'Icon View' type of layout, but instead shows the devices in Wide View. Here devices are also made slightly wider or smaller in order to fit the whole screen. Within the general settings, there's an option for Grid View to provide a minimum amount of Colums that the Grid View will use. It comes in handy to tune how wide devices will become, depending on your screen width
Resize View* : Is able to provide devices in both Icon/Wide and Large View. Right-clicking or long-tapping a device (preferrably on the header or footer to avoid switching), will allow to choose the View for the Device. When changed, the device will be re-added to the view on the same place. This view doesn't support reordering
Dashboard View* : As might be guessed, this view is ment to provide a Dashboard like view which contains your key Devices in the way you want them to have. No grouping is used, to allow for maximum display area. Devices can be resized just like the Resize View, but can also be re-ordered by selecting "Move Up / Move Down" (see it as a vertical list) :). Ticz stores the order of the devices independently in a XML file for later use.
NOTE : Resize View and Dashboard View are relatively slow in loading compared to Icon View/List View and Grid View. This is a technical limitation as these views don't support Virtualization, because of the varying Device size. On Phones and slow tablets I would recommend to limit the amount of devices in such a view or only use the Icon/List and Grid Views. On desktops it probably doesn't matter that much which view you'll use :). The Dashboard View can also be used on a slow device (like Windows IoT on a Pi2), but stay statically and use the Background Refresh to update the Devices every one and a while.
Ticz supports 3 'methods' for refreshing your devices :)
Since v1.6.0 Ticz supports the rendering of Graphs for most standard devices. To render the graphs I've found a Community Edition of SyncFusion's WinRT Toolkit with tons of custom controls. The graphs within this free toolkit are much more customizable than the WinRT Toolkit versions that were ported from Silverlight. They also render much faster, although the speed on phones could still be improved a little. If you're waiting for your graphs to load, it's 99% render time, which is CPU.
Apart from creating a functional App, I also wanted this App to look good. Taste is subjective, but I like a minimalistic overview, with few colors. Therefore I created for all standard devices a vector image which, when the device is turned on, will change in the accent color of your device.
For those who want the 'Domoticz experience', the app also supports loading the Domoticz icons, through Settings-->General-->Use Domoticz Icons. The advantage of using Domoticz icons is that any strong customization you've done for Domoticz icons (editing the /www/switch_icons.txt file), will also show up in Ticz. When using Ticz's 'internal' vector icons, these customized devices might show up with a ? icon representation