Make Helpers more "Object Oriented" (wrap multiple helpers in a container)

KevinE · October 21, 2022, 5:25pm

My helpers are getting out of control and the only way to (sort of) manage this is with a strict naming convention. Many times I have to create multiple helpers to around one feature I am working on so was thinking about a wrapper helper to compartmentalize this. For example, was just working on an alarm clock feature for my google nest so the wrapper would be bedroom_alarm and the helper fields would be bedroom_alarm.ontime, bedroom_alarm.offtime, bedroom_alarm.radiostationurl, bedroom_alarm.onofftoggle etc.

This could probably be implemented in a nonbreaking manner - existing helpers would have a null wrapper (container) and new helpers could be optionally assigned to a container wrapper.

Similar issues have been raised with automations and the same concept could be applied to both although automations would be mostly just an organizational feature.

Hellis81 · October 21, 2022, 5:29pm

Most of the times you can manage with just one helper if you save the values comma separated in a text helper.

But regarding the WTH, I’m not sure I understand how exactly the entities would be named and accessed using your proposed system.

KevinE · October 21, 2022, 5:52pm

naming would follow via the wrappername.helper (bedroom_alarm above). The main helper screen would show a list of wrappers that can be expanded to show all of the helpers for that wrapper

bedroom_alarm:
>ontime input_datetime.ontime Date and/or time
>offtime input_datetime.offtime Date and/or time
>onofftoggle input_boolean.onofftoggle Toggle
next_wrapper:
…

get the ontime via bedroom_alarm.ontime

To make it truly object oriented you could also attach scripts to a helper object (wrapper)
i.e. bedroom_alarm.dosomething

Almost all of my helpers are groupings of helpers describing the various states and its a bit untenable to manage this as one big linear list.

petro · October 21, 2022, 9:21pm

You’re basically describing template sensors with attributes. (already exists)

Or adding helpers to devices. (Already existing WTH)

aruffell · October 21, 2022, 9:36pm

This is an example of something where I had to create a lot of helpers:

Like @KevinE said, it gets messy really fast. Any way to group them together by intended purpose, mostly to keep track of them, would be great. Incidentally, I just created another WTH where I was suggesting for some way to keep track of orphaned helpers (created but not, or no longer, used). If there were a way to bundle them together, when you get rid of some automation, you can easily go delete all related helpers too.

I wonder whether Watchman can do it…

templeton_nash · October 22, 2022, 1:38pm

I think the labelling of entities (tagging) which also applies to organising automations would be the solution.

Autoper · February 3, 2024, 4:10pm

I totally with @aruffell on this subject. In my house I have a rather advanced temperature automation setup to minimize power usage and maximize comfort. To make this work I needed to create many hundreds of helper entities to hold all the settings. I was able to manage this using a thight naming scheme, but with this amount of helpers it’s quite hard to find all the other helpers in between.