Hi,
I have finally updated to Openhab 3.1 from 2.5 (new installation). I actually manage all my devices in text files. Now I am wondering how the customisation of zwave device parameters should work. In 2.5 you could adjust the values nicely in HABmin.
Is there no way to set the parameters in the text file? Why are the parameters locked in the pretty view (thing tab) in the interface, but you can still change them via the “code” tab? There, without a description. I don’t understand the meaning and hope there is also a possibility via text files.
because
I don’t have experience with HABmin so I can’t say something about that part.
As long as your text files are stored under /etc/openhab/things/, /etc/openhab/items/ use an editor; open the file; do your changes; save the file …
In Main UI, which is the combined replacement to Paper UI and habmin.
No. There never has been.
With HABApp there is but not native to openHAB.
It’s even possible to filter devices by properties and apply parameters to only the filtered devices (e.g. all devices with type aeotec ZW100 shall get this parameter set)
But this will only work if your things are not defined in the text files because then the parameteres are locked in the UI.
Yes, but there is no option to set the parameters in a text file.
But if you can change it in the code tab, why lock it in the thing tab at all? Especially since you can’t set these parameters in the text file anyway. Feels like a design error to me. Is there any hope that it will be possible at some point?
You can/t change it in the code tab. This is blocked by the core inside the REST interface. If you are using text files, then the thing is considered an unmanaged thing, and unmanaged things can’t be managed except in the config file. I tried to change this some time ago, and it was rejected in openHAB.
Unfortunately there’s no option to configure zwave parameters in the text files.
No there is not and as I said text input capabilities for ZWave params have never been available.You can configure ZWave parameters in UI and you rarely need to change them so there’s no need for text input capabilities.
openHAB config is not easy to understand but this is not a design error. I suggest you read up in the docs how openHAB generally works, start here: Configuration | openHAB .
There’s also many threads in the forum on configuration via text files vs UI. Go read up on those, too.
In essence, if you use files to configure things or items, they’re there but locked in the REST API. Any UI uses that API, too. That means you cannot change the things/items via UI, only by editing files. Note this is not specific to ZWave.
Ok? sad… than i missinterpret something. thx for your answer. Would be nice to set the parameter in the text files 
The design error is that it’s currently not possible to set parameters in the text files.
Not that text files lock the parameter changes in the GUI.
That’s not a design error.
Please don’t restart that discussion.
The lack of separation between thing configuration (e.g. z-wave parameters) and thing runtime data is indeed a design error.
Otherwise @Arazaret wouldn’t have started this discussion and otherwise setting parameters from thing files would be possible.
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Personally I disagree with this, and it’s something that we needed to change in our build. The statement from maintainers is that it would be unexpected to allow configuration changes if you have specified your system in text files. Personally, I see a perfectly valid use case for this, and that is if you are trying to configure your system, you don’t want to have to make continual changes in the text file - make the changes in the UI. Sure - they aren’t persisted, but once you find the “right” configuration, then persist it.
On top of this, it disallows configuraton of devices. The previous statement was that there should be a different config system to configure devices, but this has never been developped. There was a lot of discussion, but that’s it.
So, IMHO, there is clearly a design issue here and the functionality is not there.
So let’s just address this as this statement is wrong, but I don’t think it’s exactly what you meant. It is possible to set configuration in text files, but the ZWave binding will ignore it. I’ve said why many times, but to repeat, the reason is that the binding would have to configure everything on startup since all it sees is a complete configuration set - all parameters, for all devices. It doesn’t know that the user only set one parameter in the text file. Many ZWave devices have dozens of config options, and many uses have dozens and dozens of devices. So in this case the binding would have to configure basically everything each time it starts and this would likely be hundreds or thousands of parameters, which would choke the system.
I think this is what I also say above, but you say it clearer 
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Ok, I was misreading and still referring to the files-UI-lock thing but I was also and more triggered by the term ‘error’.
Beware of language, please. An ‘error’ - at least that’s how most people would understand this - is agreed to be wrong and means someone did a bad job. So claiming that is blaming someone even if you don’t know who that person is or that’s not your intention and for sure this will not encourage anybody in the know (if exists) to start doing anything about it.
Calling this an issue, lack of functionality as Chris did is fine.