Anders Hesselboms teknikblogg

Introducing The Wall

2010-02-16

Edit: This post concerns “The Wall”, a discontinued project.

The Wall is an important component for anyone who is designing or building an intelligent home. The Wall takes care of collecting and displaying data and optionally handling touch screen input.

What does The Wall do?
It displays any value on the screen, and it responds to touch screen input (optionally). The Wall run in full screen mode on any screen (the primary screen or any other) until it is closed. You close it by pressing Alt+F4. If you are using one single screen, you might need to activate the program just by clicking the mouse before pressing Alt+F4 (depending on what you have done while the program has been running). If you are multitasking on multiple displays, you might need to activate it by pressing Alt+Tab before pressing Alt+F4.

Programming The Wall
TheWall.exe loads the file TheWall.vbs from the same directory it is started from. You need to know a few commands and techniques to be able to build it. I will show how this is done by posting examples here. You can’t choose a script from within The Wall – your script must be located in a file called TheWall.vbs and it must be located next to TheWall.exe. Many posts will be dedicated to this topic.

Get The Wall
As for now, I cannot give away The Wall for free. A demo version will be available for download. The demo version has the same functionality as “real” version, but with a text overlay.

Where is the mouse cursor?
In the current version: If you are using one single screen, The Wall hides the mouse cursor. If you are using multiple screens, the mouse cursor remains visible. This might change.

Requirements
You must have the MSScriptControl installed.

Check the The Wall tag for new posts on this subject.

Categories: Programs