HomeGenie Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: bkenobi on May 09, 2017, 11:24:03 PM
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I just noticed the note at the head of the forum indicating that this forum will soon become a read only repository (much like the old sourceforge forum.
https://sourceforge.net/p/homegenie/discussion/
I'm all for improvements, but I must say I'm a little bewildered by how to use G+ for a forum. I'm hoping I figure it out quickly, but at this point I may drop out if I can't. I know most people around here are all over social media of all kinds. I prefer to keep my personal information private and don't participate. If that means I can't participate, I'd like to thank everyone for some really informative discussions over the last few years.
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Personally, I don't like Google Plus.
I don't have troubles with sharing my identity through G+ (Google already knows a lot about me), but I find it very unuseful in terms of "forum". It lacks formattings abilities, structuring discussions is also hard, no way to see new posts...
Maybe Gene will explain this decision, maybe not.
Anyway, bkenobi, thank you for your help and work here on the forum!
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Personally, I don't like Google Plus.
I don't have troubles with sharing my identity through G+ (Google already knows a lot about me), but I find it very unuseful in terms of "forum". It lacks formattings abilities, structuring discussions is also hard, no way to see new posts...
Maybe Gene will explain this decision, maybe not.
Anyway, bkenobi, thank you for your help and work here on the forum!
+1 on this. I can always create a new email if I want to protect my privacy. But that isn't the biggest problem for me. I also find G+ very messy and not friendly to use. I hope that I'm missing something because how G+ is I don't know for what it can be good for?
Even though Gene has been away and development has been lacking, this forum at least kept HG alive. Even though Gene seems to be working on 1.2 I think without a good forum HG will die anyway. So I really hope that I'm missing the great thing about G+ and will learn. I still think HG is to good to die. But without users it will.
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I'm in agreement, I think the forum is much better..
It just needs better sign up thingys (cant think of the term at the moment!!) (thinking captcha style)
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I too agree that this board would have been a better option to G+. But I cannot mantain this anymore, and I am not even sure I will be able to renew all the hosting services once they'll expire, expecially those ones that require some sort of maintenance.
You users can still create your own unofficial forum board also if you'd like to. It's welcome.
HomeGenie is still free software. It's up the the community to make some value out of it if the product deserves it.
I've tried the best to provide all tools and documentation to make this project versatile and easy to be improved by other developers.
Unfortunately the interest from the developers' community was very poor, which means it's time for me to invest most of my time in something else, pheraps something that can make me earn some money for a living.
Probably none of you know that I'm jobless since 2013. I hope this will make you appreciate even more my personal dedication to this project. I believed in it and still do after all!
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Knowing that the project brought in very little income, I've always appreciated your time and helpfulness. I understand that running a project like this requires hosting and other investment, so I understand that there is a limit to how long you are willing to float the project on your own. I have not looked around, but are there any forum providers that don't charge? I know you started the first forum on sourceforge but moved here at some point. Is sourceforge an option to move back to so the community can continue to contribute support? I don't know if they charge for the forum but the project archival service is free.
Also, if you are giving up hosting for the forum, does that mean that hosting for all of the pages will lapse too? The project has download capability that will cripple HG if it goes away and can't be redirected.
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Hi bkenobi,
there are a few free forum hosting services, one of them that looks nice is:
https://www.prophpbb.com (https://www.prophpbb.com)
you can create HomeGenie forum there and I will be glad to link it in the HG homepage.
Next I will try to create a static copy of this forum so I can dismiss the Database Server service that is currently only used for this forum.
By the way, it's not a matter of money, since today they give you these services for really nothing. I'm just trying to narrow down the required maintenance on my side.
Also I hope you all enjoy the new documentation site:
http://genielabs.github.io/HomeGenie/ (http://genielabs.github.io/HomeGenie/)
this is also meant to limit all past questioning about basic HomeGenie configuration stuff.
The new documentation site is available on github so everyone can contribute in improving it and adding missing and useful infos.
https://github.com/genielabs/HomeGenie/tree/gh-pages (https://github.com/genielabs/HomeGenie/tree/gh-pages)
Also please help with english grammar and form mistakes that I've probably made =)
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The documentation site looks really good from my quick scan!
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Hi Gene,
HomeGenie is still free software. It's up the the community to make some value out of it if the product deserves it.
I've tried the best to provide all tools and documentation to make this project versatile and easy to be improved by other developers.
Unfortunately the interest from the developers' community was very poor, which means it's time for me to invest most of my time in something else, pheraps something that can make me earn some money for a living.
Perhaps, (HomeGenie) community (all of us) need to take time to "sell" the software around us (friends, blog, web site, ...). I think for now the HomeGenie community is more technical than skill in communication, and prefer to spend time to add some stuff in your automation system.
So more people come to the software more change to have more developers !
Probably none of you know that I'm jobless since 2013. I hope this will make you appreciate even more my personal dedication to this project. I believed in it and still do after all!
I appreciate all the work you did on HomeGenie :
- Become more and more reliable : I remember when you send update around 2 times a week :). I was there to play, have fun, learn, and have headlock to debug problem. I hope you enjoy too this steps.
- Permit to have an home automation system that can be customize
I am a little bit surprise that a developers can't find a job (the developers are needed often in job offer) and you are a skilled one ! But in this kind of research, it still have chance factor !
I hope you will find a job soon.
Thanks again for everything you have done on HomeGenie.
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I understand all the decisions but I do regret that I wasn't here in the beginning. Not that I'm a developer but I have some knowledge and would have loved to learn a lot more about HG. For now I even struggle with understand everything about git.
I think HG is really nice, and could really be a good competitor to f.ex. Domoticz that is pretty big. But even though HG works well for many of the users I think that the lack of development and support does scare away a lot of new users. Doesn't matter how good a program is, it always need to evolve and get better. Even though some users have given very good support, there is still a lot of questions beginner has that don't get answered. And if you are not a fanatic like many of us are, they move on to more active projects.
But we should be grateful for what Gene has given us, it is just unfortunate that not more people and developers got hooked and continued Genes work. I think that one good way would be to get better support for MySensors. Because users that use MySensors love to experiment and develop things, and would be a great group to target.
Don't know if there will be a 1.2 version based on Zuix before you leave us Gene?
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is it worth us getting a new 'free' phpbb forum set up? there are tools for migrating from SMF to phpbb by the looks of things?
Potentially gene could then create forum.homegenie.it within the DNS as a CNAME that redirects to the forum, or however it needs setting up? (or even a redirect on the web page for /forum
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I cant help much with that but I think a "real" forum is needed to try to keep HG alive. Would be great if it was possible to export everything on this forum for a easy transfer of old and new users.
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Gene - would you prefer to do this so you retain ownership or are you happy for the community to do this (assuming you would be happy to help with the access / files needed for migration?)
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btw created one on prophpbb to start with.. but not done anything as yet - happy to hand over to someone else though.
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I've seen both approaches used. The X10 forum is hosted on the X10 servers but no X10 staff has logged on for years. It's a community forum for the community by the community sponsored (effectively) by the hardware manufacturer. The hardware mfg has been very quiet with new products, but the community has spent time over the years helping new and old users get started and keep going with X10 as well as other systems. I'd like to have something like that at a minimum (a HG forum that could be user moderated).
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I looked around and found a forum system called Discourse. You can take a look how it works on their own support forum https://meta.discourse.org/ (https://meta.discourse.org/).
I installed it on my own VPS to give it a try, feel free to play with it: http://discourse.bounz.net/ (http://discourse.bounz.net/). Right now it has all the default settings. If we will like the system I can easily change domain name or Gene can create a subdomain pointing to the new forum, for example, http://forum.homegenie.it (http://forum.homegenie.it).
Gene, if you are reading this: could you please make a dump of forum's database and archive of forum's install directory? There is a migrator between SMF and Discourse, and archive is needed to access attachments of SMF forum.
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I've found this project and forum for 2 years. Since then I've been an active member. I'm not a programmer, but I'm inventing myself. I have a couple of my own programs that I've shared. There are a lot of forum members here helping me, and I hope I have managed to help you a few times. As others have written, a project must have a forum where users can help each other. Well, this is not G +. :)
I would like this community to survive, as many have a lot of work, especially GENE.
I support the creation of a new forum and will continue to actively participate in the tests / developments.
I am currently in a complete house renovation based on HomeGenie (http://www.homegenie.it/forum/index.php?topic=2169.0 (http://www.homegenie.it/forum/index.php?topic=2169.0))
When I'm done with it, I'd like to make a demo video that might attract even more people.
Keep up HomeGenie!
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I hear you Gene. You look around at the likes of Homeseer that retails anywhere between €80 and €800 (depending on what you purchase) and compare it to Homegenie which in my opinion is a much more straightforward and efficient product and ask yourself "where am I going with this".
From a financial perspective Gene, I suggest you partner with someone who could advise you on how to turn your product into a commercially viable income for you which would allow you to spend the time to further develop it and at the same time put food on your table.
Possibly a GoFundMe or a Kickstarter initiative could well be the way to go. I love your concept of ease of use and yes if you could encourage the community approach HG has the potential of becoming a mainstream HA and IoT product.
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Not that I'm any expert, and even though I really like HG, I think that the userbase and development at this time is to small to be able to make money from it. No one than me would be happier if Gene could continue and make money on this. But it would be sad if it wasn't open source anymore.
Because of it's possiblities to customize HG so much it is very powerful. But it also demands a lot from a new user without much skill. Some things should need to be much easier, but still maintain the possibility to be customizable as it is today.
One way, that I would think could be good, is if it was possible to get good support for MySensors. They try to take IoT to the ordinary users that like to fiddle a little. They have very good beginner guides to use Arduino to make wireless sensors. From easy things to more advanced. I've tried several controllers but they often are so specialized that MySensor sensors don't really fit. And instead of the possibility to adapt the controller you have to cripple and adapt your sensor sketch to fit in the controllers small box.
Good support for MySensors and "easy" ways to make custom widgets in HG for MySensor sensors would be a huge thing I think. And could increase the userbase very much.
I still haven't given up on my goal to be able to contribute more to HG, but recently moved to another country and all hobbies have been put aside for a while. I really hope we can keep HG alive in both forum and development.