Hi Stash,

I think you're mixing the ASCOM REST Server and the Alpaca API specifications. I hope not. The latter are specs only, and purely written down in the mindset of bringing some standardisation around the idea of "making callable any ASCOM device" via the web. In that mindset, it has been VERY well defined according to the REST logic, which although *you* may think it's a bit verbose, it is the most spread approach used in the IT industry these days when building web APIs. It's simple, and no-one (literally no-one) gives a damn about network traffic (as in... people open wireshark maybe what... once a year?) wether it's at home (2000mbps) , or the web (100+mpbs home connection, 500mbps work connection).

The ASCOM Rest server, released just in January (so alpha alpha stage), is not something that *users* will see. Users uses the devices via the API, that's it. This has to be configured once and only, and after that, we forget about it.

You might have forgotten the Alpaca Management API, which I think makes the use of the rest server interface obsolete.
That said, the ASCOM rest server UI is minimalist and perfect for what it needs to be doing.

The only missing bit is that it should be running as a windows service, if possible, and i've got to check with Peter if that's in the pipeline as it's not rocket science to make it so. There is one nuget package which does it all.

T0t4r4

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