Embed Control IoT solution provides monitoring and control of menu based applications written with tcMenu near automatically. When designing and developing your IoT menu application, you simply add a supported remote capability into your application as a plugin from tcMenu Designer. Once your embedded app firmware is uploaded you’ll be able to access it from “Embed Control”.
The user-centric version of Embed Control is being released to all App Stores at the moment, and will be available on Windows Store, Apple App Store (Mac, iPhone, and iPad), and Android Play Store.
When building a menu simply add a suitable remote control option in the designer UI. Once added, it allows you to manage the device on the local area network. Eventually, we may support well known IoT solutions as well.
Which version to use
For most, unless you want to edit forms, or open multiple windows at the same time, use the user-centric version that is designed for simplicity. Below is a high level feature list comparing both:
| Feature | App Store Embed Control | Within tcMenu Designer |
|---|---|---|
| Connect LAN | YES | YES |
| Connect Serial | YES | YES |
| Simulator | YES | YES |
| Save Connections | YES | YES |
| Show Form UI | YES | YES |
| In App Store | YES | NO |
| Edit Form UI | NO | YES |
| Multi Window | NO | YES |
The user-centric App Store version is gradually being released on App Stores, it is indicated for applications that are not either life-critical nor safety-critical. Further, the tcMenu Designer application also includes a developer version of Embed Control that can be used to monitor connections in all desktop environments.
Where to get Embed Control
All user-centric versions are available from the App-store for that platform (as they become available), the links for each version are below.
- Embed Control on Windows Store
- tcMenu Designer with Embed Control (Windows, macOS, Linux)
- Embed Control user-centric documentation
- Embed Control for developers documentation
There is also a Javascript browser light version, that can run from a Raspberry PI, be aware this is user supported, and there is even an embedded JS API should you wish to write your own UI.
- embedCONTROL JS runs on most mobile phones is a HTML/Javascript app that can be served from a Raspberry PI.
Editing forms for Embed Control
You can create and edit forms using the tcMenu Designer packaged Embed Control.
Building your own application
embedCONTROL API
There is a Java and Typescript API that you can use to monitor and control any device with remote connectivity enabled.
- Java API - see tc-menu library
- DotNet API is available
- Python API is presently being worked on
- Typescript embedCONTROL API is in the API folder
Writing directly to the embedCONTROL Protocol
The protocol is relatively well documented and easy to implement. See the tc-menu library
Using the App Store version of Embed Control
Embed Control allows you to control tcMenu based applications using either a mobile phone or desktop computer. is gradually being made available on the App Store, in a lighter user-centric form more suited to end users and mobile device use. It uses the same forms as the full desktop developer version and has at least as good connectivity. Available already on the Windows Store, and a BETA/RC is available for all Apple devices.
Generating Form Layouts for use with Embed Control
Embed Control can load layouts that have been generated in tcMenu Designer. These layouts provide more control over the mobile layout than what is possible using the Auto UI. Either the user-centric or tcMenu Designer based UI can load forms, but only tcMenu Designer can create them. How does Embed Control show menu items? A form layout is nothing more than a grid of drawing instructions, and you can select the number of columns in the grid, along with the layout name and a few common options.
Embed Control developer version for controlling and monitoring Arduino
There are two versions of Embed Control desktop UI, the first is built into TcMenu Designer and is aimed at developers and more advanced users that fully understand the menu tree, and may want to create customize views. The second version is a user-centric Embed Control packaged for App Stores and available from the App Store for that platform. This version will also support mobile devices running iOS and Android soon.
Control embedded menu application from browser - embedCONTROL.js
Instead of the desktop version, on Raspberry PIs you can serve a React.JS based single page web application that needs no installation. It works on a wide range of mobile phones, desktop and tablet devices. It is not supported in the Arduino or mbed environment directly at the moment. Using the deployed app To open the app, simply browse to the device on the configured host and port. For example if the device were 192.
You'll also find me on:
