On August 1, 2010 at 13:53, NorCal AV said...
While I wholeheartedly understand why many here feel that we should just forget about using Systembuilder and invest our time in learning Simpl, the reality is that it's just not practical for many of the dealers who Crestron has purposefully marketed the Prodigy product line to.
To be clear guys.. I am not saying that we shouldn't have a forum for System Builder and Prodigy. I am not talking to you guys like strangers online looking for info. I am offering up my opinion on what direction you guys should steer your business the same way i would if we were buddies sitting at the bar having a drink.
My reason for posting was to make you guys aware of issues your not thinking about yet. You are not thinking about those issues because they haven't happened yet and they don't teach you about them at class. When you come from RTI and URC world you program a system and in 5 years you go back and the programming is the same and the system is the same and you swap IR files and edit text on a few buttons and viola your done in an hour. Its the same when you work with simpl and vtpro for the most part. But when you work in these wizard programs your dealing with a totally different situation.
I remembered the name of the first Crestron wizard app. Its called smart touch wizard. Guess how i have to update those systems? I have to break out the 8 year old laptop that has the software installed on it and try and remember how to make changes. When application builder came out we did a bunch of jobs and then when System Builder came out i had to rewrite every single one of them because you cant run both programs at the same time.
Like i said.. i understand the logic behind programming it yourself especially when your a small company where you always seem to have more time than money like we used to be. All im saying is that as you move forward you will learn what we did. The one thing you will always not have enough of in the years to come is time. You wont be able to give away 10,20,40 hours of programming labor to be able to use prodigy in a budget system. And when you do that you are making decisions for future you. How do you think future you is going to feel about having to dig out the old laptop only to find out that the old wizard program wont let you drop in the new touchpanel and there is no update and if there is an update you find out the new device database broke your XM menu and... Im trying to save you guys from a world of hurt.
