I know this is an old thread, but I just opened HabBot for the first time to play with it and discovered that essentially none of my items have any tags. Almost all of my items have been created via PaperUI, so I don’t have any text files that I can update to add them. Is there an easy way to add tags to many items without the text files? Is the one way one item at a time via the API?
The correct answer is “yes”.
The sneeky answer is there is a way, but in all likelihood, if you are doing everything through PaperUI anyway you will not like it.
- Add a tag to an Item through PaperUI so you have an example.
- Stop openHAB.
- Open /var/lib/openhab2/jsondb/org.eclipse.smarthome.core.items.Item.json.
- Find the Item that you added the tag to and find the elements that define that tag.
- Edit each Item you want to add a tag to so it looks just like that, only with the proper tags.
Until we have OH 3 that’s about all you can do. Though, adding tags through the REST API isn’t all that much more involved than adding the tags would have been if PaperUI supported it.
Definitely not! You can add tags through rules. If you are using scripted automation, Jython, and the helper libraries, it would look like this…
from core.log import logging, LOG_PREFIX#, log_traceback
LOG = logging.getLogger("{}.TEST_2".format(LOG_PREFIX))
test_item = itemRegistry.getItem("Virtual_Switch_1")
LOG.warn("Before: {}".format(test_item.getTags()))
test_item.addTag("Add tag through rule example")
LOG.warn("After: {}".format(test_item.getTags()))
If you are still holding on to the rules DSL, it would look like…
rule "Test DSL rule"
when
System started
then
logWarn("Rules", "Before: {}", Virtual_Switch_1.getTags)
Virtual_Switch_1.addTag("Tag example from DSL")
logWarn("Rules", "After: {}", Virtual_Switch_1.getTags)
end
So, just build these out with all of the Items that you want to add tags to.
Well, I definitely wouldn’t have thought of using rules!
I was thinking about using the rest api to get the full list of my items, converting the json to a csv, sorting it and adding my tags with excel, and then making a python script to write my changes back to the API. I want the magical spreadsheet ability to copy and paste and fill. I’m not afraid of the API, but if there was already a tool to do the conversion from the flat spreadsheet back to the database for me, I’d prefer to just use that.
I can’t say I’m a big fan of PaperUI, but it has the massive advantage over the text files of not requiring me to be on a computer and then directly ssh (or samba) to the files to be able to make any changes.
Yes, I keep hearing things “maybe in openHAB 3,” but there seems to be a lot of rumor and almost nothing official about what it will really look like. 
You can download and run the work in progress. There are dozens of issues open and being worked. The new UI has been posted about on openHAB’s twitter feed. There is a thread to start working on a getting started guide with lots of screen shots.
There is a lot of “official” information out about openHAB 3. For this threads particular case there is even an entire page dedicated to creating the model: Getting Started with OH3: rewriting the tutorial - 6. Model your home with Items & link Channels
I have very clearly been looking in the wrong places! I’ve been looking in the “announcements” and “development” categories, and there’s not much there.
Hi Everyone
I have just been reading through trying to get my item attributes sorted for HABot but I must be missing something here.
I am going through my /var/lib/openhab2/jsondb/org.eclipse.smarthome.core.items.Item.json.
Where should these Semantic tags be deployed, am I barking up the wrong tree?
Here is a current item I have in my above json should I be inserting here, and if so where?
}, "HallBulbsSwitch": { "class": >"org.eclipse.smarthome.core.items.ManagedItemProvider$PersistedItem", "value": { "groupNames": [], "itemType": "Switch", "tags": [ "Lighting" ], "label": "Hall Bulbs", "category": "Lightbulb" }
Thanks in advance and I’m sure I’ve missed some core info.
They are right there 
But do not edit the JSON file by hand, use the item API instead.
Hi Dan
Thanks for the the response.
OK, so, yes thats what i thought “they are right there” but when I stopped the hab edited the file (by hand which I have done before to bring things into google) and restarted, the “tags” were not in the HABot > Item attributes review window. Which API are you referring to, paper?
Thanks!
Yes, those files are not meant to be edited by hand.
See https://www.openhab.org/docs/configuration/restdocs.html
We also have an awesome swagger generated UI for accessing the API using your browser, make sure the rest docs are installed:
then go to http://your-openhab/doc/index.html and you can play with all the API’s there, specifically to add a tag, you can use this:
WOW, OK Dan, thank you for that pointer mate, great stuff. I am pretty new to all this so really appreciate the help. I shall give this a play.
Hi Dan, as for editing via the swagger generated GUI my eyes are now open so thank you for that!
HOWEVER,
Now that my newly added item tags have been made I still can’t see them in the HABot Items attributes Review. I HAVE:
Added the new tag/s via http://myhab:8080/rest/swagger.json
Checked the file
org.eclipse.smarthome.core.items.Item.json
},
“HallBulbsSwitch”: {
“class”: “org.eclipse.smarthome.core.items.ManagedItemProvider$PersistedItem”,
“value”: {
“groupNames”: ,
“itemType”: “Switch”,
“tags”: [
“Lighting”,
“lightbulb”,
“Hall”
],
“label”: “Hall Bulbs”,
“category”: “Lightbulb”
}
“lightbulb” tag is there! (I don’t think it has to be uppercase?)
I have rebooted the server,
sudo reboot
cleared the app cache
But still, HABot can not see the attributes, hmmmm
I feel like I am missing something fundamental.
Thanks in advance
SCRATCH ALL THAT,
“lightbulb” tag is there! (I don’t think it has to be uppercase?)
YES it must be 1st letter uppercase in tags “Lightbulb”
Hi everyone,
I was trying to adapt my existing setup to HABot by adding all relevant tags to the existing groups, but for some reason HABot is unable to find any Locations that I pass. Given the Example below, I get a positive response for entering e.g. “Temperatur” with a card containing all the temperature relevant items, but a negative one for “Wohnzimmer” (Living Room) complaining that no Tag related to wohnzimmer was found. Trying combinations of both tag types, such as “What is the Temperature in the Living Room” (and its german counterpart), are also unsuccessful.
// Location Groups
Group gAll "All"
Group gIndoor "Indoor" (gAll) ["Indoor"] {synonyms="Im Haus"}
Group gEG "Erdgeschoss" <groundfloor> (gIndoor) ["GroundFloor"] {synonyms="Erdgeschoss"}
Group gLivingRoom "Wohnzimmer" <sofa> (gEG) ["LivingRoom"] {synonyms="Wohnzimmer"}
// Device Groups
Group gActor "Aktoren" (gAll)
Group gSensor "Sensoren" (gAll)
Group gTemperature "Temperatur" <temperature> ["RadiatorControl", "Temperature"]
Group gTempSensor "Temperaturmessung" (gTemperature, gSensor) ["Measurement"]
Group gTempSetpoint "Temperatureinstellung" (gTemperature, gActor) ["Setpoint"]
// Devices
Number LivingRoomWTHIsTemperature "Temperatur (ist) [%.1f °C]" (gLivingRoom, gTempSensor) {channel="homematic:...#ACTUAL_TEMPERATURE"}
Number LivingRoomWTHSetTemperature "Temperatur (soll) [%.1f °C]" (gLivingRoom, gTempSetpoint) {channel="homematic:...#SET_POINT_TEMPERATURE"}
Any idea what I am missing here? I was wondering if locaton tags are inherited at all from any parent groups (and if so, if the tags are fetched recursively, i.e. is “Wohnzimmer” only location-tagged as [“LivingRoom”}, or [“Indoor”, “GroundFloor”, “LivingRoom”]).
I’ve already tried to investigate the issue by myself and activated logging for HABot by setting the log level for org.openhab.ui.habot to ALL, but this resulted in yet another strange behavior:
- Whenever a text input leads to a positive response (e.g. “Temperatur”), there is no log entry at all.
- However, for each negative one (e.g. “Wohnzimmer”), I only get the following entries:
03-Aug-2020 20:50:54.655 [DEBUG] [org.openhab.ui.habot.nlp.internal.IntentTrainer ] - get-status[0.0897] activate-object[0.0983] create-rule[0.0535] deactivate-object[0.1720] get-history-daily[0.0535] get-history-hourly[0.0535] get-history-last-changes[0.0782] get-history-monthly[0.2584] get-history-weekly[0.0557] set-value[0.0873]
03-Aug-2020 20:50:54.655 [DEBUG] [org.openhab.ui.habot.nlp.internal.IntentTrainer ] - Intent [name=get-history-monthly, entities={location=wohnzimmer}]
Are there further plugins in which verbose logging would help me to pinpoint the issue?
I appreciate any help you can provide!
Thanks
Lukas
I think it might be related to your use of “device groups”, to work best with HABot the semantic model should normally be something like:
Group Location [<LocationTag>]
\
Group SubLocation [<LocationTag>]
\
Group Equipment [<EquipmentTag>] // represents a single equipment
\
Non-Group Point [<PointTag>, <PropertyTag>]
So:
- You shouldn’t give groups Point or Property tags;
- You can’t give both an Equipment and a Property tag to the same item (if you attach a Property tag it implies that the item is a Point, and it can’t be both an Equipment and a Point);
- In your example the last 2 non-group items (LivingRoomWTHIsTemperature, LivingRoomWTHSetTemperature) should have Point & Property tags (
["Measurement", "Temperature"]&["Setpoint", "Temperature"]) and be direct members of either an Equipment group or a Location group.
The second diagram here: [wiki] Getting Started with OH3: rewriting the tutorial - 6. Model your home with Items & link Channels is an example of a properly designed model.
I also have trouble with HABot finding semantically tagged devices.
When I say “Turn ON the office light” or “Turn ON the light in the office” - it “didn’t find anything” - even though it is correctly in the Model:
Not sure how to continue here.
Did you try saying lightbulb instead of light? Or say desk light?
An Equipment isn’t really directly controllable as far as HABot is concerned. Point/Properties are controllable. So you need to create an Equipment for the Desk Light as a Group and then add the actual Switch as a member of the Group with a Switch/Light pair of tags. Alternatively, you can tag that Desk Light Item with Switch/Light and make it a Point/Property directly on the Location.