Maybe it is just me (although its happened on two generations and screen sizes of iPad for me now) but when opening the HA app especially from background state the UI doesn’t always redraw and part of the screen is missing the UI / totally black. Have to flick the screen in the corner or something to make it appear. It’s a minor thing but so annoying given the quality of the app otherwise. I’ve previous reported it and provided screenshots to the iOS devs in discord, I think I remember them saying it was an issue of the front end not the app. That was well over a year ago and issue still persists.
Anyhow, would be nice to see this cleaned up - assuming its not just me.
Maybe. I got the impression from francks post its an acceptable WTH. From my discussion with the ios devs it might not be the app and its something more fundamental to the front end but of course I have no clue. Tbh it could apply to lots of elements of using the ios app in my opinion, just making it work correctly. Its all well and good adding features but when your main interface to the system can be clunky or buggy its really frustrating. Of course lots of good ideas in the forum which I am voting up so I don’t expect much from here but if you don’t ask you don’t get right
You ever try selecting areas or entities from drop down lists and the keyboard auto opens? Why? Why not open when clicking the text box so instead you can see the list to scroll through without it blocking
Even now after all this time, still weird things happen where the list freezes and you can’t scroll (maybe when lists appear above the menu option selected rather than below and selecting entries returns a different one you didn’t press
Screen not redrawing
Just someone to sit and go through all the funkiness of the ios app and get the interface improved would make me happy!
HALLELUJAH finally someone to corroborate my complaints… I’ve been fighting this on my main wall panel since like 2019. I’ve posted about this in the forums and submitted reports on Github but there wasn’t much interest. I have two different generations (which are also different sizes) of iPad Pros and they are the only ones that do this… and it’s every browser and the companion app on both iPads so it has to be a Webkit issue (Apple forces all browsers on iPad to use Webkit under the hood). I’ve gotten far enough with this to enable the Web Inspector on a regular Mac to try to debug mobile Safari and I’m 90% sure that this is a “compositing” error: this happens when the browser doesn’t order the layers correctly. Here’s a screenshot of how the inspector shows all the layers that HA creates… there are a lot of them.
I even get the issue on system pages though so I think you’re right that it’s about how HA interfaces with Webkit and not some rogue custom component. Does anyone know a web design guru? I don’t want to have to buy another tablet just because of this, but I’m at that point.
I tried:
Deleting all custom repositories and even HACS itself
Rewriting my main page a bunch of different ways
Enabling/disabling Webkit experimental features dozens of different ways
Force reinstalls, recreating my VENV, all the upgrades over years
While I’m at it, here’s an automation using browser_mod which is a functional workaround though it causes a bit of a screen spasm. I’m using a Hue motion sensor with the guided access trick to wake it as approached, so this automation runs when the screen comes on. I added the delay because it was getting stuck in a loop.
- id: 'id_30_0'
alias: "kiosk refresh when comes active"
trigger:
- platform: state
entity_id: light.bm_ca_kiosk_screen
to: "on"
condition: []
action:
- service: script.refresh_kiosk
- delay: "00:00:10"
I’ve spoken to one of the iOS devs in discord (they are good and respond zacwest I think) specifically about redrawing from background state and from memory they said its not the iOS app or at least not something they can fix. Interestingly they had me screen shot the problem and what not which made me thunk they didn’t have the problem. From memory there was some discussion about the size of my iPad. It started for me on a 10” when they first brought those iPad pros out, but its also same on my new iPad pro 12”, so different screen sizes and complete different generation products. Interestingly I never experienced this on my iPhone, but then I’ve been rocking this iPhone X for 4 years now. It works fine and the other half has an iPhone 13 and has never mentioned anything.
Clearly more people have it as we got a handful of likes here, maybe iPad users are a minority or they just think its the iPad and don’t go looking to address the problem. It drives me crazy.
Edit: I just saw you say you are using iPad pros too (mine were 2019 and 2021 generation devices)… maybe that is the common denominator and why zac didn’t seem to experience it (that or he doesnt actually use a physical ios device and develops in some virtual environment or something).
I have it on a latest gen 2021 12.9” currently. Previously had same problem with 2019 generation 10”. Both were pro models.
I don’t remember the problem on my 2017? 9” iPad pro - gave that device away so can no longer check it, but I don’t remember it having the issue at least.
Mine are an 11" 2018 (3rd gen) and 12.9" 2021 (5th gen). Also no problem on iPhone here.
At some point one of the devs- probably @zacwest or Robbie- posted on one of my gripes that this is a frontend issue and not an issue with the companion app; given that it happens with not just the app but all browsers, I think that’s probably correct. There’s somebody out there that will be like, “oh yeah that’s because Webkit does blah blah differently than everything else, just change this one line of the base code”
I have this problem for a while now on my iPad Pro 2021 12.9. But with version 2023.4 the problem got whore, normally the right part of the screen is not drawn but now the menu is away.
