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Thank you Art I will look into that.  So am i to interpret that you do not recomend using Hal for something like this?  If so may i ask why?

I have been using Windows Speech Macros for some time as a voice interface for assorted automation.  Specifically I use it to run a bunch of vbScripts that provide information from Outlook like schedule, email stats, and RSS data.  WSR has proven to be unreliable plus ti lacks any real personality so I am looking into something like HAL to use as a interface. 

The problem is I am having a hard time finding posts and info on how to create customize plug ins and reverse engineering the the examples is time consuming and unreliable.  Is there actually a manual or some good documentation on how to write them and I just could not find them?

Ok so a few items.

Best pool alarm = fence.  The first thing I did when my son was born was fence the pool.  I also use a pool alarm I believe it is a patrol but that is more to keep my neigbors kids from swiming at night.

Zwave is good no doubt.  I went with insteon due to pricing and unit selection.  I have played with homeseer, misterhome, girder, HCA.  Overall I stuck with mControl because it was fairly easy to use and for the price had alot of options.  Issue with mControl is that it is harder to integrate than something like homeseer.

I use mControl to manage my AC and furnace plus my whole house fan.  The thermostats are proliphix and I like them better than my prior attempts with Venstar and RCS.

Anyway I am starting to figure out how to do plugins for Hal.  Once I get it down I will likely try to integrate it to mControl so if it works out I will post it.  Now if I can only find the time to get it done ;)

Ok now that these are working I am learning my way around these plug ins.  So far I really like them.  I do have a question, what is the source database for the research function?  I have asked some items like to reasearch the history of a country that hal says the database has no useful information on.  However if I ask some of the questions you used as examples it works great.

Guys having played with assorted home automation for years I can tell you that unless you have a very small house with a simple electrical system and/or do not mind a intermittendly working system stay away from x10.

x10 is a very simple protocol but it is highly subject to noise on your electrical lines.  Common items like computers AV etc produce this type of noise and will cause all sorts of unreliable results.  I like many started out with x10 and when it works it is pretty good but you quickly get anoyed with having things that work only some of the time.  If you want to go into this world the cheapest way that still is reliable is probably insteon.  There are less actual component options but there are enough to get the basics done, the hardware does not break regularly, and the protocol is very reliable.  I have used zigbee zwave and a few others and overall tend to stick to insteon. 

That said I do have a few x10 devices still.  Particularly they have some cool RF devices that are very helpful and work reasonably well if you get a addon antenna.  I also have some of the x10 pro switches for large amp switches like my pool filter that are on dedicated circuit and thus reliable with x10.  Past that all my windows sensors, alarm, switches, thermostats etc all are different types but Insteon is by far the bulk of them.

I happy to talk more about this if anybody is interested just message me.  In fact one of my key interestest in HAL is trying to figure out how to integrate voice control for my house.

So as frequenty the case in technology it was a simple answer.  Althought the files looked intact etc they must have had damage because when I redownloaded them from the source the all show up fine.

Thanks

Well at least I was not crazy.  Interestingly when I copied in the batch file plug in that showed up it is just not the Gretta ones that I added.

Unfortunately it is not that easy.  I have pulled them from the zip and have them in the program folder along with the default .uhp files.  Is there some way to see what tries to load and or errors if they do not?

So a potential newbie question here but since there is a suprising low amount of posts on how to install plugins I suspect it is supposed to be so easy that something more complex must be going on.

Anyway I am having issues getting these plug ins to show in the options under the main brain.  Specifically I am interested in the read and news plugins.  I have copied the file to the right directory but nothing shows in the list but the default plugins.  I have activated my instances, trield rebooting, ensuring the files are not read only, checking for obvious corruption, redownloading etc.  Still not showing.  I purchased a plug in and that worked no problem.

The posts I did find seemed to all confirm that after I copy them and re-start Hal it should just show up.  What am I doing wrong?