How to 'announce' a new plugin?

[I M]

A couple of years ago a friend asked me to sort out a control system for his well; it would run dry under heavy use and require a trip out in order to reset once it had returned to normal levels - typically after an hour or so.

More recently a 'roundtuit' happened and I wrote a simple web-based control program for a Pi that would auto-reset the well controller via a relay after a user-specified period and display the pump status etc onscreen from opto-coupled inputs. The software also allowed for remote manual control of the well pump, all of which meant that the trek to the pumphouse would become a simple glance at a screen from wherever. A simpler and cheaper way to do it would have been to use an Arduino but I was thinking of the future as they have an elderly irrigation system...

After some trawling around the 'net for ideas on improving the latter I came across SIP and liked what I saw, not in the least that you're receptive to contributions, are maintaining the project well, and have developed quite a good ecosystem.

To that end I've written a plugin, presently entitled 'well' that displays the well pump motor status on the front page, along with timer detail (countdown of minutes) for controller reset if the well pump controller has shut off due to the well running dry. The time to reset is adjustable via the plugin menu, as are a couple of other parameters that should also allow the plugin to completely take over the task of well control should one wish to entrust it with your expensive well motor and pump...

It's working fine on the bench presently, and will hopefully be installed onsite within the next week or so. Following some insitu testing and cleanup of the code, and assuming it works as intended, I'd be happy to make the plugin available to anyone that might find it useful.

As such I've registered here so I could let you know about this and enquire as to whether this would fit within your vision for SIP? If so, and when I'm satisfied it's ok for release, I'd have thought the 'Announcement' section the right place to post a notice, however it didn't look as if one could start a new thread there? I guess that's by design, and clearly I'd go through the requisite protocol etc around reviewing the plugin first, but perhaps you could let me know where/how to make it public whenever it's ready?

Thanks.

[dan]

A couple of years ago a friend asked me to sort out a control system for his well; it would run dry under heavy use and require a trip out in order to reset once it had returned to normal levels - typically after an hour or so.

More recently a 'roundtuit' happened and I wrote a simple web-based control program for a Pi that would auto-reset the well controller via a relay after a user-specified period and display the pump status etc onscreen from opto-coupled inputs. The software also allowed for remote manual control of the well pump, all of which meant that the trek to the pumphouse would become a simple glance at a screen from wherever. A simpler and cheaper way to do it would have been to use an Arduino but I was thinking of the future as they have an elderly irrigation system...

After some trawling around the 'net for ideas on improving the latter I came across SIP and liked what I saw, not in the least that you're receptive to contributions, are maintaining the project well, and have developed quite a good ecosystem.

To that end I've written a plugin, presently entitled 'well' that displays the well pump motor status on the front page, along with timer detail (countdown of minutes) for controller reset if the well pump controller has shut off due to the well running dry. The time to reset is adjustable via the plugin menu, as are a couple of other parameters that should also allow the plugin to completely take over the task of well control should one wish to entrust it with your expensive well motor and pump...

It's working fine on the bench presently, and will hopefully be installed onsite within the next week or so. Following some insitu testing and cleanup of the code, and assuming it works as intended, I'd be happy to make the plugin available to anyone that might find it useful.

As such I've registered here so I could let you know about this and enquire as to whether this would fit within your vision for SIP? If so, and when I'm satisfied it's ok for release, I'd have thought the 'Announcement' section the right place to post a notice, however it didn't look as if one could start a new thread there? I guess that's by design, and clearly I'd go through the requisite protocol etc around reviewing the plugin first, but perhaps you could let me know where/how to make it public whenever it's ready?

Thanks.

Welcome,

It sounds like you have developed a very useful plugin. There are most likely others who would want to make use of it.
There are a couple of ways your plugin can be added to the SIP collection.

1) If you are a GitHub user you can fork the sip_plugins repository, add your plugin, and make a pull request. When adding a plugin to the repo it is also necessary to edit the README file to add a name and brief description of the plugin.
https://github.com/Dan-in-CA/sip_plugins

2) You could make the plugin code temporarily available for download somewhere else and I would add it to the plugins repo.

I would be glad to post an announcement about it.

Dan

[I M]

A couple of years ago a friend asked me to sort out a control system for his well; it would run dry under heavy use and require a trip out in order to reset once it had returned to normal levels - typically after an hour or so.

More recently a 'roundtuit' happened and I wrote a simple web-based control program for a Pi that would auto-reset the well controller via a relay after a user-specified period and display the pump status etc onscreen from opto-coupled inputs. The software also allowed for remote manual control of the well pump, all of which meant that the trek to the pumphouse would become a simple glance at a screen from wherever. A simpler and cheaper way to do it would have been to use an Arduino but I was thinking of the future as they have an elderly irrigation system...

After some trawling around the 'net for ideas on improving the latter I came across SIP and liked what I saw, not in the least that you're receptive to contributions, are maintaining the project well, and have developed quite a good ecosystem.

To that end I've written a plugin, presently entitled 'well' that displays the well pump motor status on the front page, along with timer detail (countdown of minutes) for controller reset if the well pump controller has shut off due to the well running dry. The time to reset is adjustable via the plugin menu, as are a couple of other parameters that should also allow the plugin to completely take over the task of well control should one wish to entrust it with your expensive well motor and pump...

It's working fine on the bench presently, and will hopefully be installed onsite within the next week or so. Following some insitu testing and cleanup of the code, and assuming it works as intended, I'd be happy to make the plugin available to anyone that might find it useful.

As such I've registered here so I could let you know about this and enquire as to whether this would fit within your vision for SIP? If so, and when I'm satisfied it's ok for release, I'd have thought the 'Announcement' section the right place to post a notice, however it didn't look as if one could start a new thread there? I guess that's by design, and clearly I'd go through the requisite protocol etc around reviewing the plugin first, but perhaps you could let me know where/how to make it public whenever it's ready?

Thanks.

Welcome,

It sounds like you have developed a very useful plugin. There are most likely others who would want to make use of it.
There are a couple of ways your plugin can be added to the SIP collection.

1) If you are a GitHub user you can fork the sip_plugins repository, add your plugin, and make a pull request. When adding a plugin to the repo it is also necessary to edit the README file to add a name and brief description of the plugin.
https://github.com/Dan-in-CA/sip_plugins

2) You could make the plugin code temporarily available for download somewhere else and I would add it to the plugins repo.

I would be glad to post an announcement about it.

Dan

Thanks Dan,

It was installed yesterday, and successfully reset the pump. Unfortunately there's a hiccup - I need to change some detail around the optocouplers I'd used (was told the system used 50VDC, however it's actually 24VAC!) but once that's done and I've ironed out any bugs then we can probably do the Github thing.

I hope to have a replacement interface sorted by week end, assuming that's successful then I'd anticipate a week or so of testing and adjustment, after which I'll contact you again to upload the plugin.

BTW I never rec'd an email informing me of your post, yet believe the settings were configured to do so.

[I M]

Dan, just following up on this...

For various reasons it's only today that I was able to install the replacement interface. The system appears to operate as expected, but I've advised the owner to keep an eye on it over the next few days in case of any hiccups.

The [rather hacky] code and docs etc are presently on Github and it could be reviewed/merged now, or you could wait for a week or so for any updates that arise from the insitu testing - whatever suits.

In terms of refinement; it could do with a proper tidy-up, and I think it'd be useful for the switching to be logged, so will do that at some point. Otherwise it presently does everything I can think would be needed - although, having just said that, I expect someone will find it lacking!

I should also note that I've not tested the well pluging compatibility with other plugins, however the relay-board plugin is installed with no apparent ill-effect and will be used at some point in the future.