Custom component (helper) with ObjectSelector

mjako78 · July 26, 2023, 6:49am

Hi, I am trying to develop a custom component and I wanto to use an ObjectSelector to store some values in a key-value format (yaml).
In the config_flow i defined the field

OPTIONS_SCHEMA = vol.Schema({vol.Required(VALUES): selector.ObjectSelector()})

VALUES is a const that store the string “values” (the field name).
When I start HA in dev mode, I can choose my custom helper in “Settings > Helpers”, but when I click on it, no popup appear and I don’t have any error in debug terminal inside Visual Studio Code.

I searched and there are at least 2 integration that use ObjectSelector (androidtv and scrape).
I tried to mimic the config_flow based on scrape, with no success.

Can someone help me?

msp1974 · July 27, 2023, 8:49am

Post a link to your code

mjako78 · July 29, 2023, 8:34am

This is the link to config_flow.py class on project hosted on GitHub

github.com

mjako78/yaml_helper/blob/dcd3cf921d9e14a68a48a197a6c5b97a62ff102a/custom_components/yaml_helper/config_flow.py

"""Adds config flow for Blueprint."""
from __future__ import annotations

from collections.abc import Mapping
from typing import Any, cast

import voluptuous as vol

from homeassistant.helpers import selector
from homeassistant.helpers.schema_config_entry_flow import (
    SchemaConfigFlowHandler,
    SchemaFlowFormStep,
)

from .const import DOMAIN, VALUES, LOGGER

OPTIONS_SCHEMA = vol.Schema({vol.Required(VALUES): selector.ObjectSelector()})

CONFIG_SCHEMA = vol.Schema({vol.Required("name"): selector.TextSelector()}).extend(
    OPTIONS_SCHEMA.schema

This file has been truncated. show original

The link to full project is GitHub - mjako78/yaml_helper at object-field
The branch I’m working on is object-field

msp1974 · July 29, 2023, 5:51pm

So, I don’t know if this is a bug in the HA frontend or designed functionality but it is loading your helper form (as the screen dims to the background) but you get a console error saying:

Uncaught (in promise) Error: Selector not supported in initial form data
    a compute-initial-ha-form-data.ts:86
    a compute-initial-ha-form-data.ts:8
    value step-flow-form.ts:115
    value step-flow-form.ts:47
    update lit-element.ts:160
    performUpdate reactive-element.ts:1331
    scheduleUpdate reactive-element.ts:1263
    _$Ej reactive-element.ts:1235

The only way I could get this to load your form is to set it to vol.Optional instead of vol.Required. You may then have to have a validation function that this field is not blank.

It maybe worth raising an issue on the HA github about this or in the discord to see if a developer can tell you if it is intended - I’m thinking maybe not as it is not handled well with any UI error message.

EDIT: Actually, if you add an empty dict default value, this will also load. Ie:

vol.Required(VALUES, default={}): ObjectSelector()

mjako78 · July 30, 2023, 8:14am

Thank you, both the solutions you mentioned work.
Now I have to decide which of the two to use, the one that best fits my needs.

About opening an issue on github or discord, i think i will; as you say, the error is not handled as feedback to the user (my bad not to watch chrome console ), and might be useful to someone else.