Though there is a HABPanel viewer app for android in beta I believe.
But it is definitely a code heavy approach to do just about anything that doesn’t come with HABPanel out of the box. It’s amazing what some can do with it but it is also beyond reach for a lot of users.
There are lots of ways to help that do not require coding and which are equally valuable to the community. Helping others on this forum is one, plus it’s a great way to learn more yourself. Contributing to the docs is another way.
This is what the Beginner’s Tutorial is supposed to do. Unfortunately it was never actually finished. Also, to a large extent, the real sticking points for users will be specific to the technology they are using. For example, the types of problems and way to use Zwave is significantly different from KNX.
Those fine details should be covered in the binding documentation.
This is a known problem and there is an issue open. The Network binding’s discovery feature is currently broken. This is why scanning for devices in the Inbox is not showing anything for you right now. But keep in mind, all you can do with the Network binding is detect whether a device is on the network or not. You can’t control your ESP8266 through the Network binding.
@bartus has a good set of videos and the start of a new beginner’s tutorial openHAB Basics Tutorial - (Part 1/n) - Introduction. I’m hoping this turns into official docs at some point.
When you make something full proof, the universe makes better fools.