Groups for non managed items

Hello All,

This may sound trivial, but i’m really struggling with it.

I have few items using the MQTT binding and defined in an item file (example as below):

Number egBedroom_Fibaro_Battery (egBattery) {mqtt…}

These are added to a group (egBattery) which i tried to use in a rule as below:

logError(“Demo2”, egBattery.members.get(0).name)

Unfortunately this doesn’t work and give me error and the group shows as empty with no members in it!
When i check these items in the paperui it also shows these items as not assigned to any group!

any idea what am i doing wrong?

Update: I found out that i have to update the items in the text file from the notpad or other editing application to work, not from the designer…
Is this normal?