No response, so no clue what you want.
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It looks like I will need to invest some time to read the HA documentation (which is several hundred pages) and Cookbook, and then come back into the forum when I have more background knowledge.
Sorry if I was taking up too much time on one topic: thanks for your understanding.
Dear Nickrout,
Sorry I didn’t reply sooner - I am not sure what the usual expectations for response times are on this forum.
As I said in my initial post:
I was looking for high-level guidance rather than specific technical issues. Based in the helpful responses so far, I have determined that I need to sit down and read the documentation (which I am making a start on, but will take some time), learn how to use the forum software (Discourse) using the Cookbook, and spend time on the forum learning its culture and language.
Thank you to you and your colleagues for your help and forbearance so far.
Indeed, so what I’m saying is, don’t do that just for the sake of reading (I’ve been using HA for many years and I’m still learning new things). Rather start with a specific issue or something you want to do and then read the related docs and cookbook pages. I would say, you should read at least the first few cookbook pages/links. If you post a new topic about a specific thing and have done a couple of searches to find the relevant info and can show what you’ve tried, you will really get some good help. It’s fine if you don’t understand everything you’ve read: showing you’ve made a real effort is worth more.
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This. Your mind won’t cope if you try to cram all the available knowledge at once. Start off small with the basics, then pick a specific project you want to tackle and read up on it.
You’ll soon run into related subjects which you can absorb and apply in realtime. Much better than digesting everything at once and hoping something sticks.
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Dear Parautenbach and ShadowFist,
Thank you for your guidance: I will try to take on-board both your points. It sounds like you advise an iterative ‘read-try-ask…read more-try again-ask more…’ approach, which I will take on-board.
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Yep, indeed. Just try to cover the basics: thoroughly read the Pinned thread and the first few parts of the docs (you can stop when you get to the Advanced Configuration section for now).
Do the Discourse bot guided parts just to familiarise yourself with the forum software, and bookmark the Cookbook section for future reference.
The fact you’re asking these questions means you’re serious about not wanting to waste anyone’s time unnecessarily, so you’re off to a great start already.
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