I new to openHAB but i hope you will help me getting a better understanding.
As a first step i tried to add a KNX router in PaperUI as well as a thing/item which worked out (i can control the device).
Then i wanted to look at the knx.things file etc. which i could not find.
My question is now if there will not be an autogeneration of that file when i user PaperUI?
Will devices show up in PaperUI, when i create them in the text file?
Best regards,
Stefan
Hi Stefan,
You can either programm with de PaperUI or with te text file. I find the text file more clear. The PaperUI is a little bit easier. PaperUI doesn’t generate a text file. When you create an item in the text file it will show up in the PaperUI. But it is easier to stay with one method, the text-file or the PaperUI.
Regards Mark
Just to be clear, it does generate a text file. It’s just located in a different place (/var/lib/openhab2/jsondb) and it’s in JSON format instead of the custom .things file syntax.
No, they get saved to the JSONDB.
Yes but they will be read only. You can see them but not change them. Also, with some bindings there are things you cannot do when Things are defined in .things files. Because of this and autodiscovery the official recommendation in the OH docs is to use PaperUI/REST API/Karaf Console to create and mange Things and text configs for everything else. That recommendation will likely change with OH 3.
Thank both of you for the answers.
What will change with OH3? All can be defined in the things-files?
I doubt it. The UI will make it easier to create and manage everything in the UI so I suspect the recommendation will move towards defining more stuff in the new UI. Text files will still be supported but there will always be stuff that just cannot be done in .things files and there are far fewer problems over all when stuff is in JSONDB compared with text config files. But I’m not a developer and I don’t have any real insight into what’s being implemented. Ultimately, the only reason the default recommendation doesn’t have Items in JSONDB is the lack of a way to set tags and metadata.
I do know that the new UI has a really good import mechanism to import .items and .things files into the JSONDB. I don’t know if there will be an export mechanism to go the other way.