Can't create a Thing from line in .things file

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
1

openHAB2: I am able to create controls for switching a wemo mini socket and for monitoring the online state of this same device by installing the network and wemo bindings and using discovery and automatic item generation in paperUI.

Now, I am trying to do the same thing using manually edited files and have not been able to do so.
I am starting with the most simple case I can imagine:
I have a single line in a file named firstpass.things:

Thing network:pingdevice:devicename [ hostname=“192.168.0.142” ]

this line is copied from the bottom of the webpage describing the network bindings.
When I open paperUI I expected to see a network Thing listed under configuration but there is nothing there. The device IP, as well as all the other device IP’s on my network appear as expected in my inbox. Why isn’t this Thing already defined from the .things file?

Also, what is the syntax for commenting out a line in .things? Can it be used in the middle of a line to comment out the rest of the line or only at the beginning?

Thanks in advance,
Joe

2

PS: I forgot to mention, the IP number in my line is the actual address of my device, not the one in the document example.

3

It needs to be

network:pingdevice:devicename [ hostname=“192.168.0.142” ]

if you are on stable 2.1

You can switch the article versions at the top right.

1,

4

New entry:

network:pingdevice:devicename [ hostname=“192.168.0.142” ]

Same result. No Things configured.

5

Make sure you have the correct settings for your binding:

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6

On which version of openHAB are you?
On some older version the thing config was completly different, if I remember correctly:

network:device:devicename [ hostname=“192.168.0.142” ] (for 2.0 stable I guess)

7

Thanks for the response. We’re making some progress.

My Version: openHAB 2.1.0-release build-

I changed the entry in my .things file to:

network:device:devicename [ hostname=“192.168.0.142” ]

2 things are listed in the paperUI configuration:
one is named “network device” and has a specification “network:device:devicename”.
The 2nd is named "network device (192.168.0.104) and has a specification "network:device:192_168_0_104.
When I click on “control” only the 2nd device appears, along with its associated Items.

How do I get rid of the 1st Thing?
how do I configure the bindings using paperUI? (I assume this is documented online someplace but I couldn’t find it)
What about comments in the .things file?

Regards,
J

8

Delete it in your inbox. Docs for that:
http://docs.openhab.org/tutorials/beginner/uis.html

http://docs.openhab.org/tutorials/beginner/configuration.html
and
http://docs.openhab.org/addons/bindings/network/readme.html

You will find those on almost all docs pages:

// Play the notification on the default sink

(two slashes)

9

Thanks again for the response.
I will try and add a 2nd Thing and add some rules connecting them.

I am having a lot of difficulty coming up to speed on this program and I very much appreciate the help.

Regards,
Joe

10

Regarding to the official documentation http://docs.openhab.org/v2.1.0/addons/bindings/network/readme.html the thing should be defined like

Thing network:device:devicename [ hostname="192.168.0.142", port=0, retry=1, timeout=5000, refresh_interval=60000, use_system_ping="false", dhcplisten="true" ]

the keyword pingdevice is for OH >= 2.2

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