HASS on mobile now auto rotates? :(

Development
1

I noticed that recently (I believe since I’m on 0.28.2) the HASS webpage autorotates when having I open it on a mobile.
I really hate that. I never use auto rotate especially when lying in bed.

Was this feature introduced? Can’t it be made optional?

2

What device? What app?

3

HASS (Home Assistant) doesn’t have an app. So it’s just the webpage.
Device both on Android Sony Compact Z3 and Android Samsung A3.

4

So this is probably a function of your phone or browser, not HASS.

5

Auto rotation depends on your OS (Android) settings and on the app, so the browser in this case. A webpage cannot define this behaviour.

I’ve been using HASS since version 0.21 or 0.22, and it has always rotated on my Android devices for as long as I can remember (using it in Chrome primarily).

6

Hmmm well I can’t recall that it rotated before so then it’s maybe a recent phone update (on both of my phones).
In the browser itself it doesn’t auto rotate by the way.
Only when I open the shortcut (created 1 time when opening in Chrome browser), it autorotates.

That shortcut doesn’t seem to open the Chrome browser (though I did create the shortcut through the Chrome browser).
However a shortcut created to for instance the imdb website does open the browser (and doesn’t auto rotate).

So I guess a shortcut doesn’t work for me (due to the auto rotating) and I’ll need to first open the browser and then go to the HASS page.

7

Hi PuckStar,

If you take a look at the init.py file you can see that the manifest.json file is built dynamically. manifest.json is a web standards way of letting a web site run like an application, e.g. how it gets pinned to your home screen. You should be able to change line 21 from:
“display”: “standalone”,
to:
“display”: “portrait”,

Let me know if it works for you. This could be a (yet another :wink: ) config option?

Otherwise you’d have to change this with every update / make sure it was always there. It would be easy to write a sed command line one liner and put this into your start up script which would make it survive updates of the homeassistant python package.

Steve

8

Many thanks for your reply! I will check it tonight when I’m home again.

I was quite sure it’s something in HASS itself. However I am doubting if I am correct in that it changed after an update or that it was like this since the beginning.

Anyway I’ll try your “fix” and if it works I would strongly suggest to make it optional in HASS. Any idea how we can raise that with the devs? Perhaps just a message to balloob?

9

any idea where I can find that file when I used the AIO installer? Tried a lot of directories (via WinSCP) but can’t seem to find that Frontend folder and init file.

10

I believe it’s /srv/hass/hass_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/frontend/__init__.py

11

Ok I found the file and changed the text but no affect.
I also tried to change “orientation” to portrait, but also no affect.
I restarted HASS after each try call hass_restart from with hass.
Is that the proper way?
Do you have any other idea?

12

+1 for a fix for me too. Switching off the auto rotate will be very useful.

13

This also happens to me, but I think it must be a bug in Chrome. Viewing the page normally (in the browser) doesn’t rotate, but if it’s a “web app” (shortcut on home screen) then it rotates.

There is a solution described here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/39967294/web-app-manifest-setting-of-the-default-orientation-is-ignored

The manifest needs both “display” and “orientation” settings, like this:

{
  …
  "display": "standalone",
  "orientation": "portrait",
  …
}

edit: I just realised this isn’t a good solution for people who use tablets in landscape mode. The orientation should respect the user’s device settings, but it doesn’t.

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