Thank you that has helped me understand it 100% clearly as to why a channel directly is not the solution. The goal I would like is poorly explained it in my first post, but it is to find the items in an easy to program way in the widget without needing to present 50 configs to a user that they need to find and select 50 items from a massive list.
No need to reinvent the wheel, often there are multiple ways forward if one is willing to look. Perhaps a way inside Habpanel to say ‘find the first item that uses X channel and use it here’.
Another approach could be a filter that a Habpanel designer can apply to the item lists inside a widget setup page that only shows the ones that link to X binding or another filter criteria that makes sense. I don’t like this as it still does not address what happens if you have 50 items that need to be used in a single widget.
Many ways to extend functionality in a logical way without reinventing the wheel. If they make sense is another story as I have not delved deeply into the core systems of Openhab yet.
I agree I did start this thread on the topic a while ago. I would like to see a way that an addon can be dragged and dropped and the result just works right away.
Sounds like what YSC has said is coming in Openhab 3 and I agree that would be great if the item structure is 100% predictable when a user makes a few clicks to “add thing as equipment”. It would then solve my wish that this thread was about.