Was going to create another post but it fist in nicely with this. As well as the ui, it would be really useful for the scripts, automations ect. to be automatically stored in individual yaml files under a scripts/ automations folder, rather than one large file for each.
Its currently possible to do this manually but it then doesnt recognise them in the ui.
I am a big fan of YAML configuration and probably won’t switch to the UI method any time soon.
Still, by far the most important reason why I use YAML configuration is the packages configuration style. It should be a default for everyone and I wish to see this in the UI as well.
Not only automations, but scripts, helpers, template and MQTT entities, … everything can be nicely tied into logical groups of concern. I wouldn’t consider switching away from YAML atm
I have a similar issue. Automation screen is not very user friendly. Maybe if it consists of tiles like the Integration screen, would it be easier to follow?
Maybe an idea to add the possibility of color coding automations.
Can we get tags and expand that to all entities within Home Assistant? Not only can we sort automations by tags that way, but would also allow us to do the same with other entities within Home Assistant and given the right template functions / filters we could even use tags within automations.
For example, I often find myself to have two “classes” of lights in rooms. Ambient lights and main lights. Some automations I only want to affect the main lights in the room, but not the ambient lights. If we had the ability to tag entities with “main” or “ambient” and the ability to specify tags e.g. in targets, one could build automations that only affect entities that are tagged with a specific given tag.
So much potential!
I think that it would be very useful to group automations in tabs, in a similar way to Node Red. Tags are also nice but I feel like folders/tabs would provide a better overview
The ability of adding small icons to each automation will help much, with a hierarchy structure for automations something like windows file system.
Everything is organized alphabetically so I just use that with a naming convention so that everything remains grouped together. It’s a simple fix but requires a little planning. I’ve found that just about everything will fit within a couple categories. I then add the general area and a description. In the case of my Routines I add the time before the location so they sort in order of time. The end result is a naming convention that gives you an organized list.
Examples:
This could probably be done automagically by using a bit of context from the automation fields.
This needs to be #1 priority, it makes the whole automation system pointless if it gets messy once you start using it heavily!
Yes we know there are mediocre workarounds like assigning automations to a room, but this is not helpful if you want to structure by other criteria!
Please add some kind of custom structure, labeling, whatever…!!
I just added the same topic to WTH,
I would like to have a categorized by a rooms
Totally agree! An object should have multiple tags! To be sorted, searchable, … even to be dynamically referenced by its tags from automations, scripts, etc.
We already have this… >settings > areas & zones
eg:
Granted it doesn’t display very nicely.
I use ‘Packages’ for all of my config so a way to organise all HA entities in the GUI in the same way would be awesome and is the only thing preventing me from migrating my config.
I’d like to see a way to group all Automations, Sensors, input_selects, scripts etc etc that relate to a ‘thing’ of our choosing into a single GUI page. This is how I currently use Packages. All code for a particular ‘thing’ (eg: Washing Machine) is bundled up in a Package file called washing_machine.yaml We should have a way to do this in the GUI.
Definitely +100 votes for allowing us to add user defined tags to the automation to allow us to then sort/filter faster on the automations page.
Totally agree,
Exactly what I’ve posted a couple of answers above. Packages is a good concept and goes beyond automations. The prominently discussed “tags” idea is in its simplest form identical to packages but can be used beyond that. Good way to go.
The WTH request is a bit too narrow as it only talks about automations. @MarkusJ would you be willing to add an update to your first post, saying that helpers and scripts, entities or even devices should equally be considered?
Yes! And filtering tags should not just be limited to one entity type. It would be great to be able to see all entities with the same tag in one list, whether it’s helpers, automations or sensors.
I think there are 2 things that need addressing:
Awesome work you guys are doing. Thanks for listening!
I currently manage all my 120+ automations myself in various folders and files and I have centred it all around the ‘affected device’ if that makes sense. So if I have a switch that can control both the lounge table lamp and the main lounge lights, I would have an automation for each and in each a, version of the switch listener (single / double / etc). This has made it possible or me easily find any automation as I know the target/affected device and can go to that file and make changes.
This has helped me in the past to be able to rip out old automation easily (when I don’t have the device anymore)
I also like the fact that I can add comments and I use this website a lot to make headers for my files
http://patorjk.com/software/taag/#p=display&c=bash&f=ANSI%20Shadow&t=Lounge%20Lamp
I’d support a way to better categorize automation and support tags, being able to add multiple tags to automations and use a tag multiple times
Well, this concept is already there. Just open any entity and in the “related” tab you’ll have all the automations that this entity (or is it device?) is referring to in any way.
You can simplifying it by having just one automation that takes triggers for both turning on and turning off and chooseing the action depending on which trigger it was. Automations will be more complex but with the recent UI improvements they actually are much easier to navigate now in the editor.