This post isn’t going to be popular because it’s going to be a tad critical (although I am appreciative of the project in general) but there have been lingering issues that has frustrated myself and many for years which don’t get addressed and these are simply QOL improvements. While I appreciate the added features and new things (some not always being a good change) it seems refinements to current implementations don’t get attended to, only bug fixes and new things. The following is just some frustrations that I would love to see addressed
Template entities ability to assign to a device even if we could just assign the device id. Techinically there is no unified page to manage a collection of templates that is relevant to a device or the platform itself. They need to be hunted for in the developer tools states page.
Setting initial states for template entities or resort to last state on Home Assistant restart. Currently they’re always unknown
Developer tools to list and/or auto complete known and available jinja functions
Allow scripts to show a custom “title” for their service. Without a target field the title in automations and scripts shows "Call a service ‘<service_name>’ on " then just empty text. This just doesn’t help understanding flows immedately at a glance. *Also from what I can gather, scripts doesn’t allow targets property unlike the fields. But even if it did, there shouldn’t always be all three sections (area, device and entity) if the script only deals with just one of the options.
Allow the condition where we can choose ‘not’ for a state condition. Currently there needs to be a parent condition ‘not’ then the state added to that. This is extremely ugly and makes checking conditions a chore when you have to expand the condition to know what entity and state it’s checking not to be. This is where Node-Red becaomes more intuitive as it is soo easy to decipher the condions at a simple glance just by the number of outputs the node has and where they’re link to. While the actions display is alot better than it used to be, I still find conditions either in the conditions or actions categories “the blocks of hell”.
Allow the more-info actions for tap, hold and double_tap to show more-info for a different entity other than the one assigned to the card. eg. Say I have a button to toggle Hyperion (switch.hyperion) but want double_tap or hold to open a dialog for the light.hyperion related to hyperion. This had become more necessary considering the recent Hyperion changes in how it’s toggled. I also don’t find adding third party integrations like browser_mod the solution as they come with their own issues and also becomes another added chore with error filled logs.
Cleanup and force delete zombie entities. It is a pain to try and remove an entity that’s lingering because if a simple name change or is no longer needed. (Yes, this is something I would like to have but is also a long standing ISSUE)
Omit showing any entity in the statistics page that aren’t being recorded. Currently it’s displayed as something that needs to be fixed with the message “This entity is excluded from being recorded.”
None of those are actually issues and are just things you would like to have. And as it has nothing specifically to do with this release it should have been posted in the feature requests section. Which is where I have moved it.
I accept your attempt to be helpful but I must say nothing mentioned is QOL native improvements, they are alternatives and mostly missed the mark.
If I make templates for say Surveillance Station Rules, then I would like to see them inside the DSM device that they’re related to. There are many more different examples but that sticks out to mind atm… This is a QOL improvement I would like to see implemented, it wasn’t a question.
I fail to see anywhere in the template documentation where I can set it’s initial state, adding an extra automation is not a QOL alternative and I frown on excessive messy automations (This is also a reason why I made Switch Manager ). Keep in mind this is also based on triggered templates not entity changes etc.
If I’m about to make an automation or script then I want to test a couple of things then I would goto developer tools → template, not load up a whole IDE install add-ons which also needs to be updated along with HA updates incase new functions are added. Then try to test and ensure I get an output with my entity states and… actually I honestly don’t even want to think about going that route. The Developer Tools Template page is very capable, it already autocompletes enities and so forth, just feel it would be better having intelli sense for functions too so I don’t have to flip back and forth from their webpage listing the functions just to remind myself what a function was called etc.
Again it’s not a question, when I goto my scripts or automations, the conditons and actions are automatically collapsed. This is fine but there are alot of services or custom made scripts that don’t make sense on the default title. At the moment the alternative is just give the block an alias.
I’m requesting native solutions, I can actually delete things manually without 3rd party tools. Again this is just a QOL request. actually is also an internal issue when you want to have an entity take over the zombie entities name.
Devices are never really implemented fully, so do not hold your hopes up.
Entities are the thing to work with.
And there have been many requests for grouping, folders, linking to devices and so on, but it is really still only make up that. The options are already there with the naming.
You might call it QOL. I would say it is a function that is requested because the user can’t be bothered with the planning.
No, but it is an alternative that works, so it is again just bothering the user to do it a bit harder, but also in a way that allows more flexibility.
True, but its intellisense have to look up that info somewhere and not every integration addon and other piece of code publish information in that somewhere place, so it will fail a lot. HA is a work in progress and intellisense will always be behind and with HA it will be way behind.
So there is a solution already.
Not likely gonna happen.
This is the introduction to Spook that is made by Frenck.
So, there are a lot of things/features that will never end up in Home Assistant itself.
This can have various reasons. For example, it is just too random, out of scope, not matching the Home Assistant philosophy, violates architectural design, is still in early development, experimental, explorative, or just freaking useless.