[Asterisk-Users] Extension buttons

[John Todd]

At 2:23 AM +0000 on 4/23/04, Anon wrote:
>On Friday 23 April 2004 12:33 am, David Krider wrote:
>>  I've downloaded the entire archive of articles and searched through them
>>  for an answer on this, but I haven't come across one yet. I'm looking to
>>  replace a small phone system in my church with Asterisk, and I'm stuck
>>  looking for phones. I know that the staff are going to want a button for
>>  their commonly-called extensions, but I'm having trouble finding phones
>>  that have, say, 10 programmable buttons for this sort of thing. I'm left
>>  to conclude that most phones can do this sort of thing by clicking
>>  through some combination of buttons. However, it would seem that the
>>  average price for a nice SIP phone eliminates the possibility of just
>>  ordering some to find out. Can someone please tell me how this is
>>  handled in general? For instance, the Polycom 600 doesn't seem to have
>>  ANY buttons that can be programmed for particular extensions
>
>Not correct - The Polycom SoundPoint IP 600 has 6 buttons on the upper left
>hand side that can be programmed for "particular extensions" and speed-dial
>entries.  It also has the ability to support 6 lines, and has extensive
>directory support.  And, strangely, ALL the buttons on the phone can be
>reprogrammed.  Keep in mind this phone uses context-sensitive soft-keys, so
>it offers much more ability and functionality than can be seen in a low
>resolution photo on the web.  It may suprise you to know that the soft-key
>implementation is very well done: intuitive, logical, efficient, and easy to
>use.  (Polycom should pay me for posting this  ;)
>
>Anon

OK, so the question may become more focused with Polycom phones then:

Is it possible (ignoring Asterisk for the minute) for Polycom phones 
to indicate visually (on the LCD or on a lighted "extension" button 
or something) that a particular line is in use?  I would expect this 
method to be via NOTIFY or SUBSCRIBE calls from a SIP 
registrar/proxy/call handler upstream.

Now, if the answer is "Yes", are there instructions anywhere on 
exactly HOW that is supposed to work, so that someone can start to 
code these methods into Asterisk?  This is one of the missing 
features when people look at Asterisk as a PBX replacement - the 
simple task of looking at the phone to see what incoming lines are 
"off-hook" or what people are busy is lost, but this is a mandatory 
requirement for office phone systems.

JT