Lutron Keypad Engraving Text Data Retrieval

markbsure

In Lutron Homeworks you can add a title (engraving) to each keypad button.

We have our own IP module for interfacing to Lutron from AMX, and I can not find a way to retrieve this text.

Does anyone know if it is possible to access this?

It would be really handy as we link our AMX systems directly to lutron keypads and if I could automatically retrieve the keypad text and populate our AMX program database this would save a lot of time and keep our systems in sync automatically.

felixmoldovan

I cannot see any way of doing it via the CLI...
A possible approach ... web scrapping of the HTTP interface? (please don't...)

I might not see the point of this, as the button names are made to last... They are actually being engraved, right? From that perspective, it will be just the right way to "engrave" them in TP4, or in your processor constants.

Let us know if you come to a different resolution.

Spire_Jeff

There is a way to do this on some level. I know that some other companies allow you to drag and drop Lutron data within their system. I don't remember if you have to export the data as an XML file, or if you just access the project file directly, but I recall finding a document regarding the format of the XML data that was published by Lutron.

If I can find any of the info, I will let you know.

Jeff

markbsure

the reason i'm looking into this is that during the first few months of installing a system (lutron & amx), we are constantly changing the lutron scenes as the client decides on how they should best work.

our lutron engineers will keep the "engraving" names on each keypad up to date with each lighting change they make.

in amx, i link a room in the house that you can control with amx directly to a lutron keypad present in that room. Therefore to control the lights in the room from an amx panel, they will have a page which looks like a lutron keypad, and basically emulates the physical keypad in the room.

so every time we change the name of a keypad button in lutron, i have to replicate that text change within my amx code.

if i can automate this, by pulling the text from lutron directly it would make everything a lot more.... automated!

if this text data is stored as a XML file that i can pull of the lutron processor that would be great!

DHawthorne

Homeworks Interactive has an option to export keypad data as XML. I wrote a parser in my Homeworks module to read this file and update my feedback with it (I'm pretty sure it's on the forums somewhere, I recall uploading it once upon a time). Since Illumination, however, the feature is missing. I've talked to Lutron about it, and they claim it will be going back in; the project is storing it somewhere, after all, it's just not as easily accessible. Even in Interactive, getting to the export feature is kind of esoteric. The option doesn't even exist unless you go to the programming tab, save the file, then go back to floorplan mode. It vanishes if you make a single change until you save again and go back to the floorplan.

What I have been doing is just whipping up my own XML as a stop-gap with the keypad labels. It's not ideal, but it's better than recompiling or loading a new panel file every time there is a minor change. It's dynamic; if the XML file changes, so will the labels. What I am doing is storing the XML on the master, and reading it when the module loads. To update it, I upload a new XML file with hwi_new prepended to the name. The module checks for files with that in the name every five minutes, reads the new data when it finds it, and re-writes the file as HWI.xml on the master, then deletes the hwi_new file.