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Document Release 1 - ALPHA!

- First time installation -

Note: Make sure you have the external programs installed eHome needs. These are...  WinAmp, Window Media Player V9 or V10 and video codec's. See the download page for more info

The easiest way to setup eHome Digital Tools for the first time is to set it up on a single machine and get that working first. Make sure you are logged in on an Administrator account. Download and run the install. Follow the on screen prompts and In the end you will see this screen:

Leave both options selected as this is your first install and click the FINISH button. After a few seconds the eHome Wizard will start. (The Wizard can be re-run at any time by just going back to the Windows START menu and select the eHome program group)

Note - When installing more then one eHome client you do not need to leave the 'Run eHomeInstallSamples' selected as you will already have content (Audio and Video) on your eHome system.

Lets look at the eHome Wizard.

If you click the button in the lower left corner, you will toggle and un-toggle eHome from automatically starting on this machine when it is turned on.

From here you can setup all options for eHome. Lets look at the 1st tab (Programs to start). There are 3 servers components and one client component that can be run on any eHome computer. They are:
 

Note - The photo server are not active in this release
Note - There is a difference on how the Audio and Video servers function. If you are going to play Audio on your local machine then you need run a Audio server on the local machine. If you are going to play Video on your local machine you just need to connect to any Video server on your network as Video is played local and Audio is played through the server. 

So with the configuration above  this machine will...

But for our 1st time install, Make sure all servers and the client are set to start.

Now lets move on to the 2nd tab (Client/Server options)

Enter in the city or zip you are going to get the weather for. We also have 2 nice big buttons! These buttons run the external client menu and options editors that allow you to configure the client on this machine. The button on the bottom left allows you to configure other eHome machines on your network. See the Admin help page for more information.

Lets first look at the menu editor. Click the button for the menu editor.

Its pretty simple, Just double click on a line and in the edit box above you set the menu to show or not show on your touch screen client. Go ahead and change your screen to match this picture and click close. You can also edit the INI file directly and edit the client VBS file from here.

Kitchen and Office components use a path to a shared SQLite database to save their information. Since this is your first install you can leave the paths blank and the local database will be used. But as you add more eHome computers you will want to set their paths to point to the path of your first install.

Note: Photo Catalog and Home Automation are not active in this release.
Note: If you want to run the add-in default TV viewer, you need to go to the download page and check out eHome TV!
Note: Check out the How To section for more information on the VBS file and scripting.

OK, lets now change some options. Click the button for the options editor.

Again, to edit just double click a line. lets take a look at our first few entries

Double click on the first line 'Description and location of this computer' The edit box is now filled with the value 'New Install' Type in a descriptive name and location for this computer like: 'TS Kitchen' Click the save button.

Skip the next line as we will use the default icon graphic path.

The 3rd line is where you set your screen size and skin. Double click on the line and select a skin that supports your screen resolution and click save.

The next few lines are the servers that this client connects to. Again, since this is a 1st time install we are going to leave them all set to 'Localhost'

There are quite a few option here and we wont go into them all but with this editor you can customize this client to the capabilities to this computer and its location.

Note - So lets say this is your kitchen touch screen, but it uses the computer in the living room for its audio server. You would double click on the 'Audio server to connect to' line and change that to the name of the computer in the living room. Then this touch screen client would get all its data from the living room computer and play music in the living room and would not need to run a Audio server locally.

OK, on to the 3rd TAB (Genre's) Again, more big buttons!

Here you get to set the genre's of your Audio and Video and also add and remove any bookmarks for the internal web browser. We will look at the Video genre editor and the rest work pretty much the same. \

If you have already setup you genre on another eHome computer you can click the import button and the eHome wizard will search for other eHome computers on your network and ask you if you want to import from them to this computer.

So click on the Video Genre Editor button.

You can change the position, name and enable - disable any genre you want. This allows complete customization of eHome to your needs and tastes. Just click on a line in the grid and click one of the buttons, then save. Pretty simple really.

So lets now take a look at the Shares TAB

On this tab you can setup a share for this computer so other eHome computers can see its content. Even if you do not intend to have content on this computer you should still share this drive so that the eHome administrator program can modify this install. (the eHome administrator program allows you to modify all eHome computer configurations from a single machine) eHome will automatically scan your network and look for network shares that have 'eHome' folders. Here you can see that the eHome wizard found 4 shares that have eHome folders. Each one of these shares will be looked at by the Audio and Video servers and their contents cataloged.

For our 1st time install... You should have 1 entry. If you do not have any entries here then eHome cannot see any content! It cannot see audio or video and there for cannot play anything.  If your C drive was not shared by default then you need to click the 'Share this computers eHome content' button. If all goes well (Are you logged in on an Administrators account?) then eHome should share your C drive and scan your network and you should see 1 entry. that will look something like 1=\\Kitchen\c-ehome

Note: eHome can find content in one of two ways. First is by searching for it itself. If you setup your drives to be shared (simply share your C drive) and all computers can see each other without the need of a Windows username and password then eHome will also see them and search for a eHome folder. The program 'eHomeContentShares.exe' will scan your network and write out a file called 'eHomeContentShares.dat' (this is run on install and can be re-run from the Admin) This file will contain all found shares with eHome folders. The second way is to edit the INI files directly. (See the 'Manage paths by hand' checkbox on the picture above) This is sometime necessary as the Windows browser service (not related to internet browser) has a few bugs and inconsistencies as well as some NAS boxes that are running Linux sometimes conflict with the Windows browser service so there can be a problem auto discovering eHome shares.

Note:  On sharing content on the eHome system: eHome Digital Tools was designed with the idea that there is more than one eHome computer in your home and that your home network is open. eHome computers should NOT require OS passwords. They should be turned on and automatically logon and run eHome. Firewalls are meant to keep people out and they should be installed on your internet connection, not on eHome computers.

Note: If eHome is only going to run on a single computer.  You do not have to share your C drive.  You do need to click 'manage paths by hand' and then click Edit. Enter \\NAME_OF_YOU_COMPUTER\C$ and save. An entry of c:\ will NOT work.
 

Here is were we setup the Powerhome - eHome interface for the screen builder. This only needs to be done on the computer that you are going to use to design screens from. This computer must also be running Powerhome. If you are not going to use Powerhome you can ignore this screen.

First thing to do is setup Powerhome to enable the Socket Server and the UDP broadcasts. See the Powerhome documentation on how to do this. Second thing to do is setup a DSN connection to the Powerhome Database. (See here for help on setting up your DSN) Once this is done you can click on the 'Test Powerhome DB connection' button and verify you have a connection. Now in the panels above, change the computer name to the name of the computer you are using and make sure you Socket Server and UDP setting match the setting in Powerhome. These are the defaults so if you did not change anything all should be good. That's it! 

To design screens see the Screen Designer help page.

The last TAB is Pocket PC

This TAB setups up the server the optional PocketPC AVOD remote. You can change the server the PocketPC controls and also add a external program that can be run on your PocketPC. See the PocketPC documentation for more information.

Now click the close button and all your configuration changes will be saved.  Power down your computer and eHome should auto start when it is powered back on.