After the update with the Restart button, this is what my settings looked like:
I browsed through the settings for an embarrassingly long time before finding the restart button and I’m not even using an ultrawide.
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This. As to how to remember it, that’s a typical problem with keyboard shortcuts. HA only has two ( e and c) at least. The tip at the bottom of settings also frequently mentions that you can type c to do commands and e to find entities for this reason.
Anyway I was just pointing out that what you wanted exists. I’m not opposed to a search icon at the top of settings to launch it without remembering to type ‘c’.
I feel like power controls need to be an item in the system menu promoted from the toolbar
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I think one of the problems with that placement is when you select System a list of sub menus appear.
My immediate assumption would be to select one of the menu options. Logically I don’t expect to start looking at an area of the page I wasn’t interacting with to get there.
Restart is also the only action on the System page making it seem like you’re on a menu selection page rather than an action page.
To me it would also make sense for all restarts/reloads to be in the same place.
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Another one would be Helpers and People. Even though they’re part of core ultimately they’re integrations. Other core integrations show in the integrations menu so logically I would expect to see and be able to add helpers in the integrations menu.
It could even work something like the zwavejs integration where pressing configure on people in integrations for example would go to the menu for people.
Overall some consistently regarding where settings get placed would help everyone. Another example I come across would be the insteon integration. For zwavejs you go to the integrations menu then click configure but for insteon it’s on the left sidebar.
This ui isn’t consistent and can leave you looking around for settings for quite a long time. This is especially confusing for new users who get familiar with looking in certain places only to find out they now need to go somewhere else to do the same action for another integration.
That’s something you added, it’s not standard. Insteon does not naturally add to the left sidebar.
It appears whenever you add the insteon integration. It’s even shown on the blog post announcing the new insteon features coming to home assistant. https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2022/04/19/for-insteon-users/
HA team must have done it with the intent of making it easy, advance, feature rich but the end user experience is definitely a mess. I have been using it since last 5 years but now it makes it difficult to locate the options, earlier navigation was very-very easy.
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To be honest I think HA is going the same route as Facebook. So many people want so many possibilities that HA is going to please everybody ending up with a million parameters to set. Ending with a settings menu nobody can find anything anymore. Stop adding more stuff and sort the stuff that is already there. Maybe even get rid of stuff only less then 5% of users use.
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If we did that, we would end up with 154 total integrations out of 1068. If we dropped integrations that less than 1% use, we’d be down to 264 integrations out of 1068. If we dropped integrations that less than 0.2% use we’d have 490 integrations. If we dropped integrations that less than 0.2% use we’d have 690 integrations.
You sure you want to do that? I see you use Enphase Envoy, that’s only 1% use from all installs, or what about your Doorbird, that’s 0.3%.
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I’m talking about settings. Sorry everything except integrations and addons.
But where are the millions of settings in the settings menu you are talking about? Do not get, what you are saying. You you give some examples from these millions of parameters, which are not needed in your point of view?
I think the current settings panel is a lot better than any iteration we had before.
The problem is that it changes all the time. Every few months we get a radically different settings page. That’s hardly good UX. They should settle on a design and go from there. Something like a settings menu is inherently subjective and perception will vary on the type and skillset of the user. You’ll never get a perfect menu that pleases everyone, so there need to be compromises. That’s fine, but please just stop redesigning it all the time.
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All hardware, move datadisk, ip information, system information, integration startup time, elevation.
These are all either in the wrong place within the UI or not necessary at all (for 95% of people or more).
But let me tell upfront that this is my opinion. Not a fact. But since this topic is here I might not be the only one.
Wow, it’s been quite a long discussion out here.
I just popped in to say, that maybe it would be helpful to just add a search field at the top of Settings page.
Somehow equivalent to the ‘C’ shortcut. Also kind of similar to macOS ability to search in System Preferences, or searching within’ the Help menu in most macOS applications.
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One more idea popped to my mind. What if on desktop (I mean kind of widescreen resolution), Settings would be presented as a 2 panels, one next to each other.
First (left, 1/3 of container’s width) panel should contain the settings list that we have as a current solution. Second one (right, 2/3 of container’s width) would display the “insides” of whatever section was selected on the 1st one. If there was no selection made on the 1st one, 2nd one should display a neat ‘empty state’.
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One more thing.
I am also not sure whether ‘description’ of each Settings section is that needed, especially on mobile devices. It clouds the ‘titles’ and makes the whole sections list harder to read.
Think about it, how many times did you read the descriptions? If you get to know them, do you still need to have them visible for all the time?
I never even found that, I stumbled upon it in the Developer Tools.
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Why not have a c-key like search bar in the top bar on devices with large enough screens? It’s unused space already.
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