Stand-alone Application
Essentials was originally designed as a standalone SIMPL# Pro control system application and has developed into a versatile, pluggable application. This page describes how to use our built-in room types for a completely self-contained "one-slot" control program.
By defining devices and a room in a JSON configuration file, Essentials can control an entire AV control system for a room. A file can be manually created in an IDE such as Visual Studio Code, or it can be generated by a friendly web-based configuration tool on PepperDash Portal, or some other configuration tool application, both requiring no knowledge of JSON. These tools step a user through building the necessary devices and setting to achieve a full working room.
Plugins
Devices
Essentials supports device plugins for communicating with various devices using both standard Crestron CIP communications, Cresnet, SSH, or other TCP/IP-based communication methods. See the Plugins section for more details
Rooms
In order to tie together equipment into a unit that comprises what devices are used in a room, Essentials supports Room plugins. These plugins are similar to device plugins, in that they're loaded at runtime and allow for customization of business logic and behavior. They're loaded into a different section of the Device Manager, and can reference devices created by device plugins using the device's key.
See Also: [[Supported Devices|Supported-Devices]]
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