Revision as of 16:40, 28 February 2010

LMCE Remote

LMCE Remote is an iPhone application which can be used to:

load available lights from LMCE
display the lights status
set each light on or off

Screenshots

Intent

Please note, this is not, and is not intended to be a full Orbiter. The goal of this app is to be lightweight so that it remains very responsive even when used over a 3G connection.

Architecture

There were three possible approaches to connect to LMCE:

Connect directly to the DCE router
- Pros:
  - seemed to be the cleanest approach, closed to a real orbiter
- Cons:
  - need to implement the DCE protocol
  - it is unclear how to obtain a list of the available scenarios through this protocol
  - remote access is difficult because of the lack of authentication mechanism

Connect to the web interface
- Pros:
  - easy to implement for simple actions
  - easier remote access as the web server is often made available externally
- Cons:
  - requires parsing HTML for more advanced actions and is prone to errors
  - requires double authentication when used for remote access (apache auth, then lmce auth)

Implement a web service
- Pros:
  - can access all required information in Lmce databases
  - very lean and network efficient
  - easily made available externally with apache authentication
- Cons:
  - The user needs to install the web service on the core before it can be used

I have chosen to go for the web service approach.

Upcoming features

Some additional features are being seriously considered:

Add a tab with scenarios
Add a tab to set security mode

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 There were three possible approaches to connect to LMCE:
-=== Connect directly to the DCE router ===
+* Connect directly to the DCE router
-Pros:
+** Pros:
-- seemed to be the cleanest approach, closed to a real orbiter
+*** seemed to be the cleanest approach, closed to a real orbiter
-Cons:
+** Cons:
-- need to implement the DCE protocol
+*** need to implement the DCE protocol
-- it is unclear how to obtain a list of the available scenarios through this protocol
+*** it is unclear how to obtain a list of the available scenarios through this protocol
-- remote access is difficult because of the lack of authentication mechanism
+*** remote access is difficult because of the lack of authentication mechanism
-=== Connect to the web interface ===
+* Connect to the web interface
-Pros:
+** Pros:
-- easy to implement for simple actions
+*** easy to implement for simple actions
-- easier remote access as the web server is often made available externally
+*** easier remote access as the web server is often made available externally
-Cons:
+** Cons:
-- requires parsing HTML for more advanced actions and is prone to errors
+*** requires parsing HTML for more advanced actions and is prone to errors
-- requires double authentication when used for remote access (apache auth, then lmce auth)
+*** requires double authentication when used for remote access (apache auth, then lmce auth)
-=== Implement a web service ===
+* Implement a web service
-Pros:
+** Pros:
-- can access all required information in Lmce databases
+*** can access all required information in Lmce databases
-- very lean and network efficient
+*** very lean and network efficient
-- easily made available externally with apache authentication
+*** easily made available externally with apache authentication
-Cons:
+** Cons:
-- The user needs to install the web service on the core before it can be used
+*** The user needs to install the web service on the core before it can be used
 I have chosen to go for the web service approach.