→ Home Zone beta 8 (Mac OS X 10.4 only)
I’ve been able to take some time to finally finish the next beta of Home Zone. Improvements include:
- Bluetooth scans have been improved. You will probably need to re-set all bluetooth triggers, but it should work much better then. I hope this fixes ghost changes of bluetooth triggers that have been reported with Beta 7. Setting the Bluetooth scan interval to 5 – 10 seconds should be no problem.
- An action to set the default printer has been added
- An action to stop the running screen saver has been added. Note that this action can’t circumvent the password dialog.
- An action to synchronize your mobile phone using iSync has been added. This is influenced by the great work of Jesse David Hollington.
- There’s a preference to make trigger state changes lazy. Setting it to a value larger than 0 will require as many scan cycles to confirm state switches for any trigger. This might help with some premature state change problems, but will obviously delay the state change by some cycles.
As always, please feel free to comment on problems, suggestions or things that just work.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:21 am
I’m noticing two things right off the bat. One thing is that the bluetooth scanner interval really doesn’t like being set to anything less than 10 seconds. I try to set it to 5 seconds but it just reverts back to 10 seconds the next time I enter the preference panel.
Also, the bluetooth status icon in the menu bar shows activity every 10 seconds (which is expected, I suppose). However, it would be nice to have some way of disabling that as it gets annoying having something blink in the corner of one’s eye every 10 seconds. I’ll look on the apple developer pages to see if there is some way to do that. If I find anything I’ll post it.
David
March 20th, 2007 at 2:04 am
One action that would be super useful, (I hope I’m not missing it), is the ability to mount a specific volume depending on your wireless network. I have those volumes in my startup items now, but my system tries to mount them always, rather than only when connected to a network where those volumes are present. So something like “When I connect to network x, mount volume y.”
March 20th, 2007 at 3:29 am
Couldn’t that be done easily by making a shell script?
# write something to umount all network
# shares and then issue following commands:
mount -t smbfs //server/share /mountpoint -o username=user,password=pass
March 20th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Yeah, but I could make an action to simplify this a bit.
March 20th, 2007 at 8:46 am
Missing the possibility to set SMTP-server in Entourage when changing Zone? So did I so I wrote this little Applescript:
——
tell application “Microsoft Entourage”
set SMTP server of IMAP account “[i]YourAccount[/i]” to “[i]YourSMTPServer[/i]”
end tell
——
save it as an application and open it using the action “Open File” when you change Zone. Change “IMAP” to “POP” if you’re using a POP server for receiving mail.
I know… hard coding names of servers into scripts is pretty ugly but it works for me
March 20th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Hi, awesome program.
I have it set up to detect the presence of bluetooth on my phone and when i leave to activate the screensaver, pause itunes, activate the screensaver password and mute the volume (and undo all bar itunes when the phone returns).
The problem is that the program activates the screensaver first and then doesn’t do the rest until the screensaver is deactivated. Which means all my device going out of range does is turn of the screensaver.
I am not a programmer so I don’t know if this will work but perhaps you could make something tell the program to do actions like activating the screensaver last so the other changes are properly made.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:33 am
Wouldn’t it be very usefull to have a trigger, which fires when a specific network interface (e.g. eth0) comes up? E.g. in my office, I don’t have a wireless lan, but plug in a network cable. The current solution is to manually activate the office settings. Get this done automatically would be awesome.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Being able to drag actions into a specific order is already on my TODO list, together with semi-intelligent auto-ordering (e.g. activate screen saver always last).
March 20th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Yeah, this is planned, too.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
The growl notifications display “Enable screensaver password” but it doesn’t actually enable it.
March 20th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
As another owner of a bluetooth phone that isn’t reliable about responding to the bluetooth scans, I appreciate the new option for lazy triggers. It would be ideal if I could separately specify the laziness for noticing the bluetooth device has gone away, vs noticing that it has reappeared. Because my errors only seem to happen in one direction (e.g., the phone is thought to be gone when it is still there), separate laziness options would allow detection of the phone going away to be reliable but slow (so, for example, it doesn’t pop up the screensaver while I’m working with the phone right there), and allow the system to be responsive when I walk back to my desk (without having to wait for multiple scans, the system could clear the screensaver as soon as it first notices my phone).
Of course, if my phone just responded to the bluetooth scans properly, that would be even better
Thanks again!
March 20th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
One other thought is that it would be useful to be able to have better control over combining triggers. For example, it would be useful to be able to express “if you can see my office network but not my bluetooth phone, lock down the machine, otherwise unlock it.” Unfortunately, there is no way to trigger on the *absence* of a device, so this compound trigger is not currently expressible.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Glad to see the Set Default Printer option was added, but it was not able to set my home printer. It seems that HomeZone accesses a printer list that doesn’t correspond to my current printers. It contains one pair of dupes and several old printer names. Screen shot available upon request.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:53 am
great software, man. you may improof it by adding two more actions (at least): 01. establish a certain vpn-connection. 02. set the smtp-server of mail to a certain one. first, ’cause you may have to use a vpn-connection with a certain network. second, ’cause you may only use a certain smtp-server while using a certain network. both are common issues in university-networks.
thanx in advance. michael.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:28 am
I’m currently figuring out how to express more powerful trigger combinations without ending up with a piece of software that’s only comprehensible for techies. This issue has come up and I’ll see how to address it.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:29 am
Yeah, that’d be great. Please mail screenshots of Home Zone’s printer list, the Printer Setup Utility’s printer list and the contents of your ~/Library/Printers to jonas at this domain. Thanks.
March 21st, 2007 at 10:45 am
I’m with Keith.
It would be great to set laziness setting for different devices, and also for it to depend on whether it is entering or leaving. For instance leaving should be ‘lazier’, entering more responsive.
I’m sure you’ve thought of this; anyway still great work.
March 21st, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Selecting “Pause iTunes” should not launch iTunes if it was not launched before the event was triggerred. I.e., this trigger should always check first if the iTunes was launched at all.
March 21st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Great piece of software. I find the program is unresponsive when polling. Maybe you could make that a separate thread?
March 21st, 2007 at 1:26 pm
It does that in a seperate thread already, but you’re right, the responsiveness could be (and will be) improved.
March 21st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
That’s right, this action was mainly written as a test for my plugin interface and not focused on real-world usability.
I will fix it in the next release and add some other iTunes-related actions, but for now you can fix this by locating the action’s Applescript at
Home Zone.app/Contents/Resources/Actions/Pause iTunes.homezoneaction/Contents/Resources/pause.scpt
opening it in Script Editor and replacing it’s contents with
tell application “System Events”
if name of processes contains “iTunes” then
tell application “iTunes” to pause
end if
end tell
Sorry if that’s too complicated; I think the next beta is not more than a week ahead.
March 21st, 2007 at 1:52 pm
This release is sweeter than ever! It seems to fix the unstability with my E398 (as in beta 7), without even using laziness!
One feature request: update notifications, so that I can get beta 9, 10, 11, etc…
Thanks again!
- tonyboy
March 21st, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Sparkle is already built in and should check once a day for updates, so I think you should be notified of new releases. Of course, you could also read my blog (via RSS in your newsreader) to track development progress.
March 21st, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Great idea, if the device responds then it is definitely present, but if it does not then it could just be failing to respond to the request and so you should try a few times to make sure it is really gone.
I have the problem of HomeZone thinking my T-Mobile Dash phone has gone about every 15 minutes even with the lazy state change set to 2.
March 21st, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I would love to see this program as a prefpane and it’s a little bit too wide for my 12″ powerbook-Display.
But it is an great idea. Maybe the triggers could also detect if some cables are connected (Firewire, Ethernet).
March 21st, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Is there a faq or any kind of help file for this thing? I’m under the impression that it’s supposed to detect wireless routers in the area or that you’re connected to and once it detects the wireless router than certain actions can be applied. However, it consistently says that the network that I’m on and connected to (and making this post from) is unavailable.
Perhaps I’ve failed to grasp the concept of this application. I don’t have any bluetooth devices to test with, either.
Does the wireless router have to have the SSID broadcasting in order for this application to work, even though I’m already connected to it?
TIA
Ramtops
March 21st, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Home Zone stellt die Software dar, nach der ich schon die letzten Jahre gesucht habe. Zwar nicht so richtig aktiv, jedoch immer wieder den Wunsch hägte eine Software zu haben die folgendes kann:Erkennen ob ein Bluetooth Device in der Nähe des Computer ist
March 21st, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Ok… I figured it out. Still a help file or some kind would be very nice.
How about some triggers for enabling disabling the firewall?
RT
March 21st, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Fantastic software! Really great stuff. Thanks for making it. One suggestion: a trigger to detect when another computer is in range of the wireless card. I’d love to set up my iMac to auto mount my MacBook’s hard drive when it’s in range, and unmount it when it’s not.
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
applogies if this has been requested before, this is my first time trying the latest software…
would it be possible to add a trigger based on being hardwired and some form of ip address (subnet or range would be good).
thx!
March 22nd, 2007 at 2:45 pm
it seems all the ‘leave’ actions are also run if a force disable occurs. i’m not a fan of the screen saver running in this instance – can anything be done to prevent this? (there may be other actions that fall into this category as well).
also – could we have an action to automount a drive, or at least run a generic script that we write ourselves?
March 22nd, 2007 at 4:08 pm
This is a great idea indeed. Maybe not even in range of the wireless card but ping or something…
Anyway, this is an amazing piece of software! Even in beta as it is. Beta 8 is very stable for me and not only does most things I could think of but also gave me some ideas on better location-based laptop behavior.
March 22nd, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Great app! I was wondering how the wireless network detection seems to work – in particular having actions fire only when a given network is joined doesn’t seem to work if the scan interval is set to 0. Does it listen to the system configuration notifications? That’d avoid any excess power consumption, any possibility of interfering with normal airport operation (as compared to e.g. iStumbler) and also make it easy to catch the ethernet / firewire / etc. changes other people are requesting or even things like firing actions on changes in power state (e.g. shut down things when the system switches to battery).
I’d also like to support the generic shell script request – I want to do things like starting SSH tunnels when I’m not at home or triggering a backup when I return.
March 22nd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I’m seeing this, too. If I force-disable, it works fine, but if I put my bluetooth device in the other room and come back, I don’t have to type my password when I exit the screen saver.
Also, would it be possible to have it unblank the screen if the screen is blanked, too? Right now it turns off the screen saver, but the screen is blanked, I still have move something to see my screen. Not a big deal, but not as “cool” as if I didn’t have to.
Otherwise, love it!
– Christopher
March 22nd, 2007 at 6:37 pm
Super sweet!
I agree it’d be nice to be able to trigger shell scripts! Same for catching plugging of ethernet (maybe to a specified ip range or router MAC?).
Also, I made two friends install the soft. Both were very enthusiastic. It’s worked flawlessly for one. While the other has had issues. First both of them get a spawned process called “airport” which I don’t. This wasn’t an issue for the first one (second gen MacBook Pro 15″). For the second (MacBook) it’s another story. The process ended up taking a huge amount of CPU (around 50% of the total) as soon as WiFi was connect. The weird part is this process is none existent on my machine, nor do I have any CPU hugging issues. Any ideas?
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Forgot to put my email in my comment. Now it’s there.
March 22nd, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Hey. Great piece of software, been looking for something like this for a long time!
A great feature would be to enable and disable various sharing options such as Personal File Sharing, iTunes Sharing, Windows Sharing, Printer Sharing etc when connecting to different wireless networks.
Thanks!
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:44 am
Agreed I seem to have the same problem!
March 23rd, 2007 at 4:45 am
Agreed, maybe even change the list of ipfw (built in firewall) rules? This would be awesome. In the same line, it would be nice to have an “unknown wireless hotzone” setting so that you can change settings if you’re connected in a café or something.
March 23rd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
is it possible to not have the printer utility come up when setting the default printer, or somehow quit the app once it’s done?
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:35 pm
So, I’ve thought about all this a little. First, I think it would very interesting if HomeZone would have simple plugins architecture for the actions (which it already seems to have looking at the contents and bundles). This would allow everyone to easily add functionality to this great application and share it with others if a repository was created. Second, I’m wondering what is your business plan for this application? Do you plan on making it a shareware when you release a “final” version or do you intend to keep it free? Know that I respect both options just as much, one’s gotta make a living doesn’t he! Albeit, if the latter, what do you think about open sourcing the application? All of the other similar apps (LocationX and WilMa come to mind) are all closed source sharewares. This would probably take a load off your shoulders as improvements would not only rely on you. I also think it would be very nice to have one open source solution for the more adventurous of us; note that this app should not stay as easy as possible to use, apps are for end-users, not for developers! (Note that I would be ready to setup a Trac environment for the project to ease collaboration, feel free to contact me via email for this).
March 23rd, 2007 at 3:54 pm
it also seems that ‘home zone’ and the ‘home and away’ project (http://maccrafters.com/home_and_away/) seem to have similiar goals, perhaps you guys could team up.
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:10 pm
On Growl: It would be nice if changing zone would generate only one notification instead of n+1. Maybe have it as an option? I just feel like it’d be a little less clutter in the end. I know Growl can have a line number limit, but I’m thinking if this is an option, it’s up to the user to set things as he likes
March 23rd, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Last but not least… sorry if I seem to complain a lot.. I just like this app so much I can’t help but want it to be the best it can!
One thing I forgot… THANK YOU ^-^
March 24th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Love this app! As mentioned by #15 Karsten, the window doesn’t fit on a 12″ powerbook. It would be great if the window was resizable.
March 25th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Great application, thanks a lot! Two things though, it seems like almost everytime I wake my MacBook up from sleep Host Zone crashes silently. There is no message, the icon just disappears and I have to restart the application. Secondly, there were a few times that Host Zone seemed to forget its configuration when it crashed and I had to reconfigure my zones. But not anymore, the last time I restarted my zones were still there. (This is all with beta 8 btw.)
March 25th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
This is great, I’ve been looking for just this for a long time. I had 2 requests (connect to VPN and mount volume) but I see they were mentioned already – if anyone knows how I can connect to a VPN from the command-line though I would be eternally grateful.
A question though, I want to change network location and connect to a volume when a particular SSID is in range. However, I need to change the location before it connects, and the mount has to be done after connection. This doesn’t seem to be possible currently? Or am I missing something?
March 25th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Yeah, the execution order is currently not defined. I’ll work on improving that, so you can drag the actions in any order you wish. Might take some time, though, as this is coupled to the new interface.
March 26th, 2007 at 4:53 pm
I solved this by deleting the stuff in ~/Library/Printers and dragging in printers from Print Center. For some reason, that creates a printer and an alias, but HZ works now.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
It might be possible to do the switch at the command line, using “lpoptions -d -printername-” which won’t open Print Center.
March 28th, 2007 at 6:10 am
I’m having trouble executing shell scripts. A simple script which just echoes to a file will run ok, but one which requires a terminal to be opened won’t.
Any pointers?
March 28th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Home Zone doesn’t know if your shell script requires a terminal. You could open the terminal session you want and save it as a .term file (cmd-s in terminal, enter your command). Drag this .term file to the open file action and it should work.
April 3rd, 2007 at 2:21 am
First of all: Great software! Thanks a lot!
I only noticed a little thing… When you set the menubar icon to be disabled and you have the application icon in your dock, it would be great if there would be a triangle underneath the icon to indicate that the application is running.
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:15 am
Hello. I like this software. At first it really worked good for me but in the last couple of days it let me down. I use an ibook G4 and only have two different networks (home and work). When i come home from work it wirks fine. But in the morning when i go to work it doesn’t change the network from “automatic” to “work” anymore. What a pity.
April 3rd, 2007 at 7:30 am
Oh. I should mention how i configured it:
01. When all of these are available “HOME” > change network to “automatic”.
02. When none of these are available “HOME + WORK” > change network to “automatic”.
03. When all of these are available “WORK” > change network to “WORK”.
April 5th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Further feature requests would be:
- Change Screensaver
- Change Desktop Background (!)
Regards,
-Akira
April 8th, 2007 at 12:50 am
The bluetooth detection in 0.9.8 (haven’t tried an earlier build) seems to use a lot of battery on my phone.
Would it be possible to support looking for discoverable phones rather than whatever is happening now? Either as an option or automatic (fallback to the current code if not found via discoverable beacons within timeout).
April 8th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I haven’t observed battery usage myself, but it’s entirely possible that using Home Zone increases power usage on your phone. Performing a bluetooth broadcast scan might be easier on the batteries, but it takes ages (>20 sec) compared to just connecting to the phone you specified. I’ll keep this on my mind and try to improve it in one of the next releases. I can’t promise anything, though, this might be the price you have to pay for easy and quick bluetooth proximity detection.
April 8th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
I’ve used other bluetooth softwares before (namely SallingClicker) and yes it will use a lot of batteries. On my Ericsson T610 the standby time goes from around 3 days down to about 1. So yeah both method have there advantages. Maybe it would be possible to select which method HomeZone uses for detection?
April 9th, 2007 at 2:50 am
Awesome stuff, thanks for making this freeware!
Take a look at BluePhoneElite and see if there is some functionality you could copy. That program has amazing features but development has been slow and it costs money.
Other than that, just keep adding commands like mad (like “Play” in iTunes so music will resume when you return to the room). This program is greatly appreciated.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:26 am
The beta is expired….noooooooooooo! We need a new version.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:06 am
I’m sooo sorry.
I really wanted to have a new beta ready by now, but the unexpectedly high interest in AppFresh kinda prevented that. I bumped the expiration date (60 days from now), please re-download Home Zone. I expect to release a beta 9 this week, and I’ll try to make it extra-delicious to make up for this blooper.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Redownloading doesn’t help. It always tells me it’s expired.
April 10th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Hm. Works for me. Must be some caching issue. I copied the file to another name, this should bypass all caches:
http://metaquark.de/homezone/Home%20Zone-bumped.zip
April 10th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Works like a charm! Thanks!
April 12th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Thanks for the update! Eagerly anticipating beta9…
April 12th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
as all mentioned above the app is wonderfull… but it would be cool to get the option to “deactivate” an option manually and it doesn’t react till i reactivate it. (or is this still implemented and i’m missing it?)
the other thing would be the opportunity to influence one Zone by another…
e.g.:
Activated Zone Work -> “force deactivate” zone “handysync” and activate workphone zone
April 13th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Cool app, but I am having trouble with it. I am using it with my bluetooth phone. It seems to work (notices my phone, etc.) but will not trigger the actions: start screen saver, start screen saver password. I keep getting the following error messages.
Any suggestions?
Jay
jbohnsac@molineschools.org
Home Zone 0.9.8
I get the following messages (from growl):
2007-04-13 13:01:04.136 GrowlHelperApp[253] 2007-04-13 13:01:04 -0500 Home Zone: Action performed (Failed to execute shell script screensaver.sh) – Priority 0
2007-04-13 13:02:18.987 Home Zone[251] in copyCurrentProcessURL in CFGrowlAdditions: Could not get application location, because GetProcessBundleLocation returned -43
2007-04-13 13:02:18.988 GrowlHelperApp[253] 2007-04-13 13:02:18 -0500 Home Zone: Bohnsack Phone appeared (Bluetooth trigger) – Priority 0
2007-04-13 13:02:18.989 Home Zone[251] in copyCurrentProcessURL in CFGrowlAdditions: Could not get application location, because GetProcessBundleLocation returned -43
2007-04-13 13:02:18.990 GrowlHelperApp[253] 2007-04-13 13:02:18 -0500 Home Zone: Zone Bohnsack Phone activated (1 Action) – Priority 0
2007-04-13 13:02:18.992 Home Zone[251] in copyCurrentProcessURL in CFGrowlAdditions: Could not get application location, because GetProcessBundleLocation returned -43
2007-04-13 13:02:18.997 GrowlHelperApp[253] 2007-04-13 13:02:18 -0500 Home Zone: Action performed (Failed to execute Applescript StopSaver) – Priority 0
April 14th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
I have the same problem. It doesn’t detect any of the new printers I added when I moved offices.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Great application, do you consider allowing for files synchronization action between devices?
E.G. I have ToDo lists on both PowerBook and PowerMac and it woulb be great to have an action to synchronise them (just check-up the dates of modification of both files and overwriting the older one) as soon as the bluetooth connection is active between them.
Hope it’s doable. Kep up the great work I’llb be definitely the first one to buy the retail version
.
April 24th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
One feature I would like to see implemented is to temporarily disable a profile while HomeZones continues to run. This would be useful when I am in a “certified” (don’t know of any better description
) environment and do not want to drain my phones battery because the bluetooth is switched on constantly.
While awaiting the above implementation
I shutdown HomeZone frequently to avoid battery draining. But when I do so, all the actions I set for “Leave” are executed and then it quits. I just want the application to *quit* when I say it has to quit, not activate screensaver and password and stuff 
Keep up the good work mate, this is an application we’ve been waiting for for a long time!!
April 25th, 2007 at 6:50 am
Check the preferences. You can set up if you want Home Zone to “leave” all zones when quitting.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:54 am
I quit Home Zone when I’m not at work for the same reason.
Unchecking “Disable all zones on termination” in preferences should solve your leave actions running when quitting issue. Works great here.
FYI, I’m using WiLMa to launch and quit Home Zone when I join/leave my work network. Both these tools together are working great.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Whoa. I cannot believe I missed that option.
Thank Jonas. Now it’s perfect.
April 25th, 2007 at 6:58 am
I see. I might add such a feature to Home Zone itself, to preserve phone battery usage.
April 25th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
I actually tried this and can’t get it to work.
The script is very simple:
[beldridg@oxcart bin]$ more mount_test
#!/bin/sh
/sbin/mount -t nfs scratch.inca.company.com:/d2/scratch /Users/beldridg/mount/scratch
I can run the script successfully from the command line.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:16 am
Stop screensaver doesn’t seem to actually stop it anymore… This is probably happening after the 10.4.9 update. When I’m in range, the password dialog pops up, so it’s doing something, but doesn’t actually stop the screensaver.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:24 am
Sadly, it’s not possible to fully stop the screensaver when the password protection is enabled, for security reasons. It’s a limitation/feature of Mac OS X, not Home Zone.
April 27th, 2007 at 1:32 am
I’ve noticed that while I’m using my bluetooth mouse (MX900), Home Zone will quite often fail to detect my phone (Nokia 6230) and will run the leave actions. This does not seem to occur while using my headset (Jabra BT200).
I have upped the additional scans from 0 to 2 but it still causes issues. It seems if I’m moving my mouse while a scan is happening, it’ll fail to find my phone.
April 28th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
First of all, great software. Brilliant idea, very good and intuitive interface!
I usually have bluetooth off when on the move, when I get home I always turn it on (for my mouse, keyboard etc). Would be nice if it was possible to turn on/off bluetooth depending on the wireless network connected.
Also I noted that you got an invitation to the WWDC, congratulations!
May 8th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Thanks for this! I have two problems a few requests.
Problem- If the screensaver is set in Sys Pref to start after some delay manipulating it via HomeZone doesn’t work quite right. If I have it set to start after 3 minutes and then set HZ to enable password protection and start screensaver when my phone goes out of range and disable password protection and stop screensaver when my phone comes in range it almost works. If I’m gone less than 3 minutes then everything works fine. If I’m gone over 3 minutes when I return the screensaver shuts off for a second, only to reappear. Even placing multiple turn off screensaver in HZ doesn’t help. It’s as if the delay counter is running in some other process. Setting the screen saver to never go on by itself makes HZ work correctly but leaves me somewhat unprotected. I work in an area where I often go to meetings in offices very close to my own – and my phone is still “in range” in those offices. So, I need to still have my screensaver come on with the password after some period of inactivity – even if my phone is still in range.
Problem-
However you check for BT availability doesn’t work if my BT headset is connected to my Blackberry. So I can’t have the headset on and connected if I want HZ to work.
Requests-
Like others, the ability to mount a volume via SMB/CIFS or AFP
Like others, change action order
Like others, network interface as another trigger
Like others, away laziness different than return laziness
May 9th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
A possible solution to the problem of HZ shutting off the screensaver only to have it immediately reactivate if I’ve been gone longer than the delay I have screensaver activation set to in system preferences would be to give HZ the ability to change screensaver activation delay in system prefs. You’d set it to “never” just before you activate it when going out of range and you’d set it to some delay value like 3 minutes as the last step upon your BT coming back in range and deactivating the screensaver.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
First off I want to say that this piece of software is amazing! As a student taking my Mac from school to home is so much easier since it now knows what to do at each location!
One item I would love to see besides the ideas listed above would be to have a way to make your own scrips. I tried to edit one of the scripts in the contents/resources/actions folder, but apple script was unable to open it[Unable to read the dictionary of the application or extension because it is not scriptable]. If I wrote my own script and put it there would home zone recognize it? If not this would be a really useful feature so others can write actions and share them!
Other than that I love it and can’t wait to see the new beta!
Thanks for all of your work!
May 17th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Hey there. Great app. I hope it remains free.
Hmm… I really like the iSync feature but, is it possible to make it sync only once a day or once a week? e.g. make homezone log the last sync, and to only sync again the day after?
If there’s an applescript way of doing this or any other means, please lemme know how.
Thanks again for all your great apps. You’re a genius!
Cheers,
Shawin.
May 17th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Inside Home Zone.app, locate Contents/Resources/Actions/Synchronize iSync.homezoneaction, inside that bundle open Contents/Resources/Sync.scpt using the Script Editor and look for a line that reads
if last sync is less than ((current date) – 900) then
and replace 900 (15 minutes x 60 seconds) with anything you want; one day would be 60 x 60 x 24 = 86400 seconds.
May 17th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Thanks a lot
Something else… Should iSync quit after synchronising when using homezone? It doesn’t quit automatically. How can I do that? Pleeeeease?
Cheers mate!
May 17th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
hmm… Now address book is opens as well with isync but doesn’t close automatically. So i have an opened address book and a minimised isync
May 17th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Address Book opened when you opened the .scpt file in Script Editor. It shouldn’t open when the action is run. Also, I chose to not wait for iSync to stop syncing (in order to quit it), as this would delay execution of other scripts in Home Zone.
May 17th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
when might the next beta be released?
May 17th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I’m asking that myself… have a lot of work to do for AppFresh, Uni and other stuff. I made actions sortable, I changed lazyness to only apply when leaving zones, added an iChat/Adium set status action and I’m working on using the availability of an IP/hostname as a trigger. Also, I wanted to add a mount share action. If that’s ready, beta 9 will be released, and I really hope this will be next week.
May 17th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
yeah – there are never enough hours in the day, that’s for certain.
looking forward to the release when it’s ready.
May 17th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Thanks a lot mate. Other developers usually ask me to wait for the next release of their app…
I should start learning some applescript so that I don’t annoy you again for simple stuff…
Now that the iTunes and iSync problems are fixed, HomeZone is excellent. (And so is AppFresh and Aurora :p )
hope to hear more from you soon.
tc.
laters.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
(Home Zone)
This seems to be a great application, such a brilliant idea mr Witt. Unfortunatly I havn’t been able to try it out as i cant choose network (as bluetooth or airport etc.) its just gray and un-clickable. First time I started it It was no problem but just later… then… nothing!
You reckon whats wrong?
May 18th, 2007 at 5:37 am
Have you actually created a trigger? You’ll have to at least create one trigger for each zone before you can set up if it’s a airport or bluetooth trigger. Create a trigger by clicking the + button to the right of the triggers list.
May 20th, 2007 at 12:36 am
Great app! I absolutely love it. The only suggestion I have is to make a “close file” action. Currently, I have it open Mail, Safari, and iTunes when I enter. I would love to it close all 3 upon leaving. I look forward to a v1.0!
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:26 am
First Great Program! Just what I need. As I often change from home network to university network to my parents network …
But I have a *problem* with configuration:
I configured 4 zones for 4 different WLANs. After a few changes the Network *settings* *become* *lost* . “Change Network*” is set to “FMI” (which is the first Network in alphabet) for all zones. Also the File I set for “Open File” in two zones gets lost (it’s totally missing). The other settings (for “Enable/Disable Screen Saver Password”) stay.
I’m not sure, but I think it always happens, after changing to the “FMI” network.
I hope this is a bug, that can be fixed in the next version.
May 29th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I’ll add to “lady_whiteadder’s” comments Johas – I’m experiencing the same behavior she is. Namely, after awhile the setting for “change network” goes to the first in alphabetical order rather than the one I’ve set it to. A file name that is supposed to run also disappears. The open file action is still there, but it is no longer pointing at a file.
May 30th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
I love this app! I do have some comments and requests.
1. I would like to be able to create my own actions. Would it be possible to define an action that simply runs a given Applescript?
2. I’d like to be able to have an action that activates and deactivates certain zones. For instance, if I am in my Home zone. I’d like to be able to deactive that zone that locks my computer when my cell phone goes out of range and reactivates it when I leave the home zone.
3. I’d want to ditto wanted to be able to define the order that the actions get executed.
May 31st, 2007 at 12:09 pm
I also have the problem of disappearing files/apps in the settings.
May 31st, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Great application! Love it!
I would like to be able to manually-arrange the actions to be taken. I would like to be able to disable-ss-password, disable-screensaver and then enable-ss-password, because i might want to trigger my screensaver in another way (hotcorner, key-combo, etc) and now it won’t ask for a password (because it won’t allow me to re-enable password protection after the screensaver has been stopped) great software however!
June 1st, 2007 at 11:29 am
Yeah, me too, but it happens with my Default Printer.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I’m sure this isn’t a big feat, but I copied and edited the “pause iTunes” function so that the program (for me) now includes a “play iTunes” setting. I use this to automatically pause iTunes when i leave the house with my phone, and resume playback when I walk in. I plan to incorporate this into my future mac’ed-out VW, as well.
For DIY reference, I simply went into the package contents, copied the “pause iTunes” action, renamed it “Play iTunes”, opened its contents and changed all the files so instances of “pause” now said “play”. Simple enough, and will probably be in the next version.
June 5th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Oh, suggestions:
1) Fast user switching, so that when either I or my girlfriend are home, it would switch to that user… which leads me to:
2) Priority for certian bluetooth devices. Say, it has actions for phone A (switch to Troy’s account) but it also detects phone B (action: switch to guest account)… could there be a way to say “if device A is detected, ignore other devices”?
June 6th, 2007 at 12:34 am
I would like to suggest being able to detect the presence of A/C power adapters being plugged in (for notebooks/laptops). This would allow actions such as shutting down/sleeping when unplugged in trusted/untrusted locations when (not) in proximity. Battery life would be preserved and I’d feel more secure knowing the login screen would prevent access as opposed to the flimsy screen saver lock.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:04 am
I’m also having the same trouble. From screenshots I’ve seen, it looks like there should be a dropdown for the ‘Set Default Printer’ and ‘Change Network’ actions that would let you choose networks and printers; but neither appear for me.
Running OSX 10.4.9; screenshot here: http://spanky.gmp.usyd.edu.au/hz.png
June 6th, 2007 at 1:37 am
Hey, I did the exact same thing! I neglected to edit the plist the first time and it didn’t show up in the Configure pane as a selectable option, but I’ve since fixed that. (Just wanted to mention it in case anyone else ran into this problem.)
June 6th, 2007 at 1:46 am
Kene, you can indeed edit the scripts yourself. In the finder, ctrl+click on one of the “.homezoneaction” plugins and select “Show Package Contents” from the contextual menu (just like you did on the app itself to see the “Resources” folder).
If you study some of the existing actions, you can make your own with some trial and error. I am not a programmer but I was able to put together a “Quit Mail” script that works whenever it’s triggered. Now if I can just get it to re-launch when I return…!
June 6th, 2007 at 10:30 am
hi, is it possibile to add a feature or action to deactivate oder acitave the airportmoudle while leaving or entering a zone?
example: i plugin my ethernet cable an airport should be deacitvated. i disconnect my ethernet cable an airport should be activated.
apples zone change isnt nice because i have to reconfigure evere vpn oder dialup setup in each zone.
regards benjamin
June 6th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
When the final build of this comes out, will it be paid? If so, what’s the target price?
September 21st, 2007 at 3:45 am
I am really a HUGE fan of this app, even though i am a simple user-I like to just activate the password when I leave home, etc. However, I am curious about how to make other actions-I am not advanced enough for the howto wection that I saw
I was wondering specifically, about changing the server setting in Mail so when I am at school for instance, I can use their smtp server.
January 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 am
So any luck getting Beta 9 ready for the public? I would like to see if that would work under 10.5.1 since the current release doesn’t seem to do much at all when checking for a bluetooth phone in the area.