WTH Isn't there a way to create reusable (visual) dashboard chunks?

I often have sections that are the same on multiple different dashboards. An example would be the security cameras. I might want the same set of cameras on a different dashboard for each of my wall screens.

You can copy-and-paste YAML (but in reality only on the Raw Configuration Editor, which is often hard to use with larger dashboards), but you can’t update those sections later without manually updating each one.

I’d love to be able to share visually-edited cards across multiple dashboards and make edits to them in a single place. This might even be able to work without a dedicated UI—possibly just having cards reference a card on a different dashboard.

I do this in HA today, but in YAML-mode (mixed GUI and YAML)

  • So I design a card in GUI, then copy the config to a separate .yaml-file which i can !include in whatever view I want (and many of them)
  • Then on the next level i use Lovelace_gen from Thomas Loven to add entities into the card, so the card is reused for many rooms with different entities in them (temp/humidity etc)

So might I suggest a card-template-level

  • create the card on a template level
  • which you then can reference and add in any view you want
  • and if template-card have variables, when adding it in a view you must select which variables/entities to show in this view

that would bring me one step closer to the future (or GUI as someone calls it :))

For this kind of use you can maybe use HACS decluttering card or streamline card.

You create a card template, and then just declare your template in the dashboard. All updates are then feasible in the template and automatically pushed to the cards.

Still support the idea of a generic core card or sections that you could instantiate in multiple places and modify/maintain in a single place…

I haven’t been able to make the decluttering work properly with the next sections view. Though even if I could (might just be a me issue), I think making this a first party supported feature would be great for HA as a whole.

Maybe give a try to the quite new streamline card which is initially a fork but offers new functionalities.

Working well with sections and offers even a graphical interface (for card implementation, not for template still in full YAML)

This is interesting.
I wish this would become part of HA itself, with better integration, like editing the templates from the UI.

Please check my WTH post here: WTH - Adding native support to reusable sections with substitution parameters (Lovelace_gen but easier)

Also check my feature request from a while back for the same thing: