Glossary of Terms

There tends to be a lot of home automation specific jargon used in documents, wiki articles, and in the support forums. This is where we'll capture those so it's easy to find the definition you need.

Term	Definition
`Action`	Indigo actions are discrete tasks that cause things to happen – such as turning on a light, changing a setpoint, writing information to the log, and so on. Indigo ships with many standard actions and plugin developers can create actions that apply to their plugins.
`Action Group`	Action Groups are collections of actions that may be reused (and modified) easily between multiple triggers, schedules, and control pages and executed via various clients (the Mac Client, the Indigo Web Server (IWS) web pages, Indigo Touch, etc).
`Control Page`	Control Pages are user-created interfaces to control their Indigo system - for instance you could create a graphical floor plan with light icons in the various rooms.
`Condition`	In Indigo, a condition is a logical test that's used to determine whether something should happen. For example, you might only want something to happen at nighttime, or only when all the windows are closed.
`Controller`	In Indigo, a controller is a device that controls another device. Z-Wave controllers include various peripherals such as USB sticks – which send commands from Indigo to a device (like a dimmer) or from the device to Indigo. A controller may also be a responder (i.e. INSTEON KeypadLinc). We've adopted the term from various INSTEON documentation.
`Developer`	A person who writes plugins or scripts for the Indigo Server (IS).
`INSTEON Link`	A connection between two INSTEON devices such that one device controls the other based on some input - a button press, etc.
`Device`	A device is any “thing” that Indigo can interact with - usually it's some kind of hardware (light switch, appliance module, motion sensor, etc), but devices can also be other non-hardware things (iTunes server, calendar, etc). Devices can also be “virtual” objects supported by plugins that have to potential to do all kinds of useful things.
`I/O Device`	Any device that has binary or analog inputs or outputs. These devices are generally used to interface at a low-level to other devices (security systems, sensors, etc).
`Indigo Object Model`	The Indigo Object Model (IOM) is how the various objects in Indigo are modeled in Python objects for scripters and plugin developers.
`Plugin`	Indigo supports ways to extend it's functionality such as Indigo Server (IS) plugins. IS plugins can extend Indigo by adding additional devices types, trigger events, and actions.
`Responder`	In Indigo terminology, it's a device that responds to commands. A responder may also be a controller (i.e. INSTEON KeypadLinc). We've adopted the term from various INSTEON documentation.
`Schedule`	A schedule is similar to a trigger, but the event that causes the execution of the actions is a temporal event of some kind. Either a fixed point in time (5/2/2011 at 1:00pm) or more likely some repeating time (every day at 1:00pm).
`Scripter`	Someone who uses Python scripts to implement automation logic in Indigo via embedded or file-based script actions and script conditions.
`Trigger`	A trigger is generally some kind of “event” that occurs. Indigo can use that event to execute actions in response. For example, turn on an exhaust fan if the humidity exceeds a certain level.
`Variable`	A variable is a place where your home automation logic can store information that changes during the normal operation of your home and that can be used in other parts of your system: for instance, you can have a variable that represents whether your home is occupied or not - then you can have special automation logic that takes place when that variable changes. Indigo variables store values as plain text.