2021.12: New configuration menu, the button entity, and gorgeous area cards!

[Ildar_Gabdullin]

@AleXSR7001

VSC is an absolute pain to use on mobile devices.

I always wonder why to use mobile devices for

• programming
• watching movies

@AleXSR7001

If you created an automation or customization or any other yaml file manually as a yaml file, it is excluded from UI editing.

And this is what I fully agree with.
I got 99.99% of my automations in packages - i.e. in yaml files.
(my observation is - many many people use packages…)
Now I have to create an automation (also based on blueprint) on UI, check&debug it, and then move it to a yaml-file in a corresponding package. And then I am not able to use UI for this automation any more.
It is OK for me that I cannot EDIT via UI - but I cannot debug it via UI too.

[AleXSR7001 (AleXSR700)]

Because late at night, when my wife is already asleep and I think to myself “I think the thermostat should be set to 19 °C at night instead of 20”, I do not want to get up and fetch my laptop

And movies on a mobile is a similar reason. It won’t wake the wife as quickly as a 50" bedroom TV would

[Ildar_Gabdullin]

@AleXSR7001

“I think the thermostat should be set to 19 °C at night instead of 20”

That is why these values should be settings (input_number) available in UI instead of being hardcoded in automations.
As for movies - good point))

[guidok (guido)]

Not sure where to go… Trying here… With 2021.12 installed, I now have the dialogue box popping up when pressing icon (prior to 2021.12 the dialogue box did not appear - which I like). Hitting one of the six icons in this example, all result in the action as listed in the card, but also having the dialogue box popping up unwantedly. Any thoughts how to prevent the dialogue box popping up?

[AleXSR7001 (AleXSR700)]

Actually made them sliders.
But also created automations, scripts etc. so you can simply click a tile and call a scenario. I am not a big fan of time based changes. I prefer them via user input (one input → batch behaviour)

[tom_l]

That is a custom card. Report it to the card developer. Nothing to do with the core release.

However someone has already done this for you:

2021.12: New configuration menu, the button entity, and gorgeous area cards!

Switches still work as they did before the update. Are you perhaps using the custom card multiple-entity-row?

[nickrout]

@AleXSR7001

If you created an automation or customization or any other yaml file manually as a yaml file, it is excluded from UI editing.

No it isn’t. Give it a unique id.

[maxym]

@AleXSR7001

This makes no sense to me as the file has been identified and HA has clearly found all the code it needs. So why force people to use VSC instead of the UI

My guess is that UI in today’s form is not matured enough to cover all details possible to be entered into yaml. Such a situation brings the risk that using gui can break original automation. Or at least may confuse users.

While I’m guessing the morivation, I faced once or twice the situation where gui were confused about my (working) automation or it wasn’t able to save it (even with no changes made) etc

[petro]

The issues are which file it (the configured automation) comes from, position in said file, inserted comments, key order, and serialization/deserialization.

[AleXSR7001 (AleXSR700)]

That’s another strange approach. What good is a unique id? It makes absolutely no difference as long as the alias is unique. A unique ID is an unnecessarily complicated way of creating identifiers.
Especially in a system that does not show you the ids in use.
So you kind of have to guess a number and hope it is not in use.

I see no reason why a unique id is necessary. So I would add it to the change and make it obsolete and just enable editing of recognized automations, customizations etc.

[AleXSR7001 (AleXSR700)]

This would not change with a unique id.
Plus, if the system had trouble identifying the source of the code, the code would not work. As the system understands the code, it clearly has all the components of said code and could allow editing.

P.s.: position in file is also irrelevant as the yaml syntax clearly separates code blocks. So if the code works, the respective block was recognized.

[nickrout]

I suggest you make a PR on the architecture github then.

[Eoin]

I can confirm I am getting zero lag.

If I have read the history on this correct ShellyHass was using CoIoT and the official integration was not, this is what was causing the lag (don’t flame me if I’m incorrect there). However, both now uses CoIoT and I’m finding response time identical between the two options.

[DickSwart]

Where will I be able to find help, if my upgrade fail? I don’t get a proper error message or I don’t know where to look. The only message I see is:

21-12-17 10:36:36 ERROR (MainThread) [supervisor.homeassistant.core] Home Assistant has crashed!
21-12-17 10:36:36 CRITICAL (MainThread) [supervisor.homeassistant.core] HomeAssistant update failed -> rollback!

Is there a way to get more info? I’m running home assistant OS 6.6. Please help.

[petro]

In packages, positions matter. Please stop making guesses. I’m giving you the exact reasons why it doesn’t work outside automations.yaml.

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

@Ildar_Gabdullin

but I cannot debug it via UI too.

You can if you have allocated an id: to the automation. All of my automations are in packages and I can still use the debug feature.

[sparkydave (🇦🇺 Dave)]

@AleXSR7001

So you kind of have to guess a number and hope it is not in use.

Or use Studio Code which generates them for you (yes, I know you have a thing against it)

[Ildar_Gabdullin]

@guidok

With 2021.12 installed, I now have the dialogue box popping up when pressing icon (prior to 2021.12 the dialogue box did not appear - which I like).

1. Not clear which icon do you mean - you got FOUR icons in each row.
2. Even before 2021.12 tapping ANY icon (main & any secondary) caused displaying more-info popup for the corresponding entity - if this entity was specified & if there was no other tap_action handler specified.

@guidok

Hitting one of the six icons in this example, all result in the action as listed in the card, but also having the dialogue box popping up unwantedly.

1. You provided 2 pics & none of them allows to see the whole code - entity_ids are clipped - are these entities are same or different? But probably this does not matter because of pt.2 (see below).
2. Probably you are facing this issue - tapping any secondary element causes starting an action for the main entity:
   Actions trigger the more-info window · Issue #217 · benct/lovelace-multiple-entity-row · GitHub

Oh, another person answered already…

[Ildar_Gabdullin]

@AleXSR7001

Actually made them sliders.
But also created automations, scripts etc. so you can simply click a tile and call a scenario

Btw, not everything may be tuned up in automations by input_helper.
There is no support for variables in trigger section:

trigger:
  - platform: state
    entity_id: !input some_entity_id
    for:
      minutes: you cannot use a variable here

Ref this thread.
So far I have to hardcode delays in these “for” sections instead of using some input_number.

[Ildar_Gabdullin]

@sparkydave

You can if you have allocated an id: to the automation. All of my automations are in packages and I can still use the debug feature.

This is a good news for me.
Since I cannot provide myself a unique id, shall I use this approach:

1. Create an automation in yaml-file in some package w/o id.
2. Create an empty or useless automation via UI.
3. Go to automation.yaml file, find this automation and copy its id.
4. Go to UI and delete the automation.
5. Go to the 1st automation in yaml-file and add this id.
6. Reload automations.
7. Now the 1st automation will be available for debugging (I do not editing).

Is it correct?