Is Aurora written in a binary format?

The plan with version 2 release was to provide an API DLL for data manipulation (much like what deweycooter has used with his utilities with past version 1 APIs). 

There were significant changes to the file format between 1.0.90 (the last available API) and 1.999.307.  The previous API is no longer compatible.  The new internal DLL now assumes that it is running in the BoxedAPP virtual environment and I have not taken the time to create an API that exposes the interfaces to be called from outside of the BoxedAPP environment.  It was on the to-do list, but wasn't a priority for Beta 1 and I simply haven't gotten around to it (plus the thread model was changing and I didn't want to waste much time on code I would be throwing away when beta 2 was introduced).

If someone wants to get at the data now (instead of waiting for an API to become available), there is a way.  They can communicate with a running Aurora APG server process to attach a converter to the virtual environment.  A specific data structure has to be sent to the APG server via Window Message to get the APG server to launch their third party converter with the correct permissions to access the Aurora internal interfaces.  After that is successful their converter can late bind an ActiveX DLL which will provide the necessary interfaces to load/manipulate/save the DLS files.  I don't have documentation for the specifics (although possible this wasn't an intended use case for the APG server), so if someone wants to do this I would have to put together some documentation-- which might take a little time.  That said, I'm going to guess that the developers probably do not want to be bothered with such a complex process for a handful of users.  If I am mistaken then let me know otherwise.

Michael


Edited by LightsOnLogan - 22 Jan 2014 at 2:01pm

If Aurora is written in an XML format not a binary format, there is a strong possibility that we could sequence with Aurora, import it into XLights/Nutcracker, and add affects for pixels.

Here's a copy of a reply I received on the XLights/Nutcracker forum asking if they'd consider creating a convert file for Aurora (note they already have conversion file for every other sequence software that I'm aware of):
"Writing an import in xLights is not hard at all PROVIDING there are some details about the file format and the data is time slice + channel driven and not effect driven.   For the XML based formats like LMS and HLS, the files themselves provide enough information.   However, Aurora seems to use some sort of binary format for which we don't have any details.   If the Aurora developer could provide some information about the file format, we could likely do it, but reverse engineering a binary file format sucks and not something I think many of us would want to tackle."

I'm a avid Aurora user, 5 years now, and I don't want to change software; Aurora is so easy to use and stable. However if Aurora and XLights can play nicely together, the future of Aurora could be very exciting.

And yes, and few days ago, I asked Michael if he'd consider working with the developers of XLights/Nutcracker to allow an import of Aurora into XLights/Nutcracker; I haven't received a response yet.

Tks!!