Shion 2.0b5

I’m happy to announce that Shion 2.0b5 is available for download.

(New to Shion? See this page.)

This release includes a variety of reliability enhancements, a new AppleScript dictionary, and new logging functionality. Some more details:

1. The reliability enhancements should help Shion work better on Smarthome PowerLinc USB V2 (2414) devices. I identified a number of situations that caused the software to hang and these are now being dealt with in the software. I also included a fix that should solve the flickering lights problem.

2. The AppleScript dictionary is similar to the one found in 1.0 with a few simplifications. Some examples:

set the level of device named "Overhead Light" to 0
the level of device named "Overhead Light"
deactivate the device named "Overhead Light"
activate the device named "Overhead Light"
name of the snapshots
activate the snapshot named "Corner On"

3. I’ve overhauled the logging functionality to support a variety of options:

 

Shion: Logging preferences 

Information is logged to a folder on your Desktop called Shion Log in plain text files organized by date. Use any text editor to inspect the files’ contents.

Note: The in-application update is currently not working, so you’ll need to download the software directly from the link above. I should have this fixed in the next release.

Remember that the focus of this beta test is to find and squash the bugs in the software. If you have new functionality that you’d like to see or new devices supported, please log those requests to the Shion UserVoice forum. For the purpose of the beta test, I’m only rewarding free licenses to those who report problems, not new ideas. (There’ll be a time and place for new ideas.)

If you have any questions or suggestions, please post a comment below.