Every single bullet point in the road map mentions a section of HA with the phrase “make XYZ easier”. I’m not sure what else you are expecting to see. That’s what this topic is about right? Making things easier.
I dont know how else to explain… I’ve tried multiple ways. And the last was uber clear and very specific… creating standards and APIs to provide standardization to Add-Ons and Integrations, include additional services in those APIs, etc.
… this is the best ‘how to make it easier’
“Easier” is a word that literally means nothing - or anything, so saying that in a roadmap is meaningless… I’ve built dozens of product roadmaps.
I’m glad you are all engaged but unless whomever steers the ship on core dev is reading this, I fear this entire thread has wasted a lot of electrons.
That already exists, it’s the websocket api and rest api.
And in regards to integrations, those APIs are not created by HA. Those are created by the manufacturer of the product that HA is connecting to.
FYI, none of what I said is user facing, so I have no idea why you’re even talking about these things unless you’re missing the term API.
Lastly, I’m really getting the same vibes from you that we had during last release thread. You’ve moved the target for what you consider rocket science 5 or 6 times now. It’s as if you’re trying to win an argument at this point instead of solve a problem.
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That didn’t last long.
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And there still hasn’t been given any example of another home automation ecosystem that does what the user(s) are asking for HA to do. You would think that if it was so “basic” as has been suggested they would all be doing it and there would be plenty of examples of how it should be done.
But then they also say that they have done way more with HA than they were able to do in in 20 years. Sounds like a huge vote in favor of HA to me.
it needs to be reiterated that even tho HA doesn’t have some of the things built-in to a UI (even tho some or most can be done via yaml or jinja) it still offers enough flexibility and freedom to allow users the ability to add to the software a lot of custom stuff to expand the usage possibilities. It could easily just be locked down like other ecosystems that are “what you get is all you get”.
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That argumentation is a classic case of “whataboutism”.
The fact that other ecosystems can’t do something says absolutely nothing about the validity of wanting to do said thing. That is quite literally why the HA project was started in the first place: Because the other systems were insufficient.
With your logic any function not present in other systems should not be implemented into HA - meaning HA would always just be exaclty as good as the next best system, but never better.
The whole reason people are asking for these things here is because they believe HA is the most likely platform to achieve this - if that wasn’t the case, they would not be asking here in the first place, but instead be using whatever platform they believe in more.
Yes, but y’all are vehemently acting like HA isn’t moving in a direction that makes things easier. When you do this, people who actually see what’s happening are going to defend the software whether you see it or not. So whataboutism is bound to happen when talking about it. It’s been used by both sides of this discussion.
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Are you doing this on purpose? The very next sentence after what you quoted explained why what other systems are doing is relevant to this discussion.
This is NOT whataboutism. It’s an argument that the features discussed are not basic. If they were, they would be supported everywhere.
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But how many softwares can you actually change the font on?
Even ms word that has been a suggestion actually only does that in the page layout.
You can’t change the fonts in the menu and you can’t change the icons.
The only thing you can do is change the theme to one of four-five options.
And that’s a background image.
That’s it.
And Word was released when? In the 80’s?
Do you know of any software for PC that you can change the font and icons in the menu and/or in the “frontend”?
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and turn on the lights automatically also 
Since HA does currently not properly distinguish between admin and users there is (apart from wonky work-arounds like browser-mod) not really a way to achieve a distincion between backend and frontend. The lack of RBAC is a whole problem in itself (apparently being worked on) but probably part of why talking about customization is confusing:
@Ltek was not talking about being able to customize the look of the HA admin interface like the sidebar and menus etc. (= backend) but about customizing the the lovelace dashboard and its cards (= user-facing frontend) in a WYSIWHYG-manner without having to do manual markdown in YAML or whatever.
So when comparing to MS Word we are talking about simple text formatting, not changing the menu colors/icons - and that is a core functionality of Word since about 40 years.
But even in the realm of actionable content within the http protocol: Pretty much any CMS (e.g. Wordpress) in existance lets you do exactly that: Customize fonts, colours and other visual stuff for the user-facing frontend, even across 3rd-party plugins. In my eyes HA is exactly that: a CMS for your home automation and its visual frontend (lovelace).
To me personally customizable fonts and colors are also not super important right now either (would be nice tho). But I can accept that to someone elses use-case this might be really important and when being used to modern CMS systems where this is most simple, I see why one might consider this a rather basic functionality.
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Do you understand that MS Word is a software built with the intention that you can/shall change fonts.
And that HA is not, and not only is it not, but it has been stated this is not something they will add code for.
So why are you not complaining that Word can’t turn on the lights?
I’m not sure this is a reasonable statement given the investment in hiring graphics designers, user experience, and UI changes. It’s hard to argue fonts aren’t an integral part of the UI. It seems I recall on a recent YouTube video the Home Assistant team were making fun of the Roboto font.
What you find reasonable and what the devs has said is not the same then.
I believe the devs more
Actually Word was released without that functionality but was later updated to be a WYSIWYG-Editor because that is what people wanted and it had to catch up with the competitors at the time such as LisaWrite and MacWrite.
I don’t recall users asking Word to turn on a lamp - so why would that feature ever be implemented? But again - all this is not about Word or any other software, it is about Home Assistant.
I totally get that HA was not initally about building pretty dashboards - but the reality of things is, that a lot of people want use it for that and thus a lot of effort has been put into providing these options in the last years. The topic of formatting in Lovelace has been brought up (not just here) - and since Lovelace is a UI system I really don’t think that is an outrageous idea.
It is totally fair for developers to decide that they dont want to prioritize / add a feature - but its also fair for users to state that to them that feature would be important without everyone getting devensive about it.
TMS Rmn… Could have googled it.
But however you want to see it, it doesn’t matter.
MS took an active decision to support fonts (for just the document) and HA has taken an active decision against it.
Let that sink in.
But you and a few others are very adamant HA needs fonts and it’s a basic function.
So why would it be any different?
What options has these people who want fonts put effort in to?
I’m not saying it’s impossible to get fonts, but when you people more or less demand it as it has been written here then you will get pushback from people that find it ridiculous.
These developers that you want to add this would be taken off from other (much) more important things.
If “your people” do make this code so that all that is needed is to add it to HA then maybe it gets implemented.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t.
It adds complexity and more things to test and such.
If state was what was done above then I don’t think there would have been an issue.
The devs have the enviable position to work on anything they want and take the position the same effort isn’t officially sanctioned or supported. Take the Spook integration as a perfect example. Honestly, I don’t have a problem with that; but it blurs the lines quite a bit, especially on this forum.
You can do fonts right now through themes, it’s just in yaml. As stated above, the only thing that would make this less rocket sciency is the addition of a theme editor. A volunteer just needs to step up to the plate to add it because it’s very unlikely that the core team will.
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…the very first Word in 1983 looked like this:
So not quite true WYSIWYG just yet. I remeber my father still using this around 1995 or so, because the newspaper he worked for only accepted it that way. It was brutal to deal with.
Sure thing. The devs can take that decision, doesn’t mean users have to agree. Maybe the devs are right, maybe the users are right. Time will tell.
…probably not much, because usually those who want pointedy-clickedy GUI are usually exactly not the ones who know coding - and vice versa: A lot of devs dont see a point in developing fancy UI, because to them coding is just so much more flexible and easier.
That is why non-coders often get frustraded with software geared towards coders: Because they don’t understand how to use it and feel stupid.
And that’s why coders get annoyed by non-coders, because they keep asking for stupid buttons instead of appreciating the amazing work done in the code.
I worked as a product owner the longest time - this discussion was my daily bread.
Yes - you are right about that. The wording was a bit demanding or even insulting in this case.
Did you know that it’s in the font file the options Bold, Italic and such exist?
So this image of what you now say is the first version we can clearly see font options, which strongly indicates fonts.
And the line saying font name also raises my eyebrows for sure.
Why would font name exist if there is none?
And that makes sense since there was multiple fonts in Ms dos.
If you now say that fonts are not the same in dos as in Windows. Then I would say I’m not sure.
But given how backwards compatible everything in MS products are, I would seriously be surprised if it’s not the same.
In Excel there are still bugs from old versions kept to make sure it’s compatible.
Can we give this a rest now?