So you’re among those ~5% to prefer GUI over text. Given this sort of prepackaging you would like to see would adversely affect all of the remaining users, this sort of streamlining will not happen, at least not inside openHAB. Flexibility ever has been and still is among the top reasons to choose OH in the first place.
Editing and file management is out of scope of OH. You’re confusing things a little there.
For those who want some sort of standardized OH environment without willing to learn Linux, there’s openHABian, to provide a logviewer, vscode enabled editor and more (a complete server in fact).
I do not think that works from the command line vi ssh.
OpenHABian already has a Vim addon if you want that.
[/quote]I prefer vi instead of vim.
If we opt for file editing, then that experience should include syntax checking, template code and all bells and whistles that enables more people to write correct configurations in the first try.
And not having to know were all config files are located.
As for running a windows server, then we are into running a 2-300W box taking a lot of space, needs a screen and a keyboard and hence also impossible to put on the top shelf in a wardrobe.
That can never be a serious alternative to Google Home or Alexa.
A small tip for the OH community, if you start a thread for Next Generation Ideas,
don’t argue against the things that come up.
Especially not if you are closely involved in the project. This is not the thread to defend the decisions that got us here, and it can never create a good climate for brainstorming and bringing on change.
Over and out for me.
I am just starting out but I have already contributed to the zwave device database, so I think I am involved.
Vim just adds features to the original vi Unix editor so things like syntax checking are possible, while keeping all the vi functionality. If you run the vi command on Linux, it is running vim.
You can’t have it both ways. Either you support file editing but the user has to know where to open those files, or you don’t.
If you are unwilling to run that much power (for the record there are Intel based machines that can run Windows that use a lot less than that and they are starting to approach RPis in power consumption) then you will have to learn a little bit of Linux.
openHAB is not positioning itself as an alternative to Google Home or Alexa. There is only a tiny bit of overlap between the two sets of capabilities and end goals.
This is a six months old thread with over 200 postings. It is one of about half a dozen similar threads from the same time period. There has been, the last time I counted, about 2000 posts on this topic.
It’s been litigated. It’s been said. All of your suggestions were already made in this very thread.
I know this wasn’t your intent, but your post was very much picking at a scab that has barely started healing over.
But even ignoring all of that, if you make a suggestion for next generation ideas and discussions, I don’t think it is fair to not allow other users from chiming in and explaining how that very idea will harm them.
For all intents and purposes, this forum is not the place for this sort of brainstorming and discussion. And that is largely why these discussions have been shut down. Only the developers and maintainers can act on any idea that is raised. If you want to brainstorm new ideas and such, it needs to take place on GitHub involving the developers. They are the ones who will volunteer their labor to code the changes. Without involving them and convincing them discussions like these only devolve into anger and argument as one set of users presents an idea, another group explains how that idea damages their system and their preferred way to work and we end up going back and forth forever.
Because the openHAB Foundation provides and runs this forum, certain development discussions cannot take place here or it endangers the tax exempt status of the foundation.
That‘s not correct, the foundation is paying Digital Ocean to host/run the forum. Last year we got a certain credit from them cause we had to upgrade to a bigger machine.
Is that really true?
There is a difference between saying it can’t be done and saying that
I don’t see how that can be done, both in terms of correctness and how it affects the continued discussion.
But from the full response I get the feeling that the discussion on future direction is preserved to a select few and then I can only wish you all the best!
(I have full understanding that decisions on directions are for a select few.)
@hmerk would be a better person to answer. From what I understand, the openHAB Foundation is established as a communications type non-profit in Germany. The foundation can communicate about openHAB and things related to openHAB and as such it can pay to host the services we use like the forum and myopenhab.org as that furthers the goal of the foundation, to get the word out about openHAB.
But the foundation can’t sell stuff and can’t build stuff without changing the legal nature of the foundation.
That’s my limited understanding of how this all works.
No, this is just not the correct place to have the conversation. By all means, make all the posts you want about anything you want to. But unless you are a developer who is going to go do the work, nothing said here is going to lead anywhere but to arguments. If you want anything to come of your suggestions and ideas, you need to take the discussion to GitHub.
@hmerk
Could you please elaborate on this a bit more?
I understand that as a non-profit organization the foundation cannot sell stuff. I can also understand that when companies donate development resources to the foundation that this could be seen as be wages in kind. To some extend I can understand that hiring someone to do development could be a problem.
However, I do not understand why/how discussions about development of openHAB here in the community forum could endanger the tax exempt status of the foundation. (I can read German, so if you have a link to a website that explains this then that would be fine.)
Ah, ok, here we have a slight misunderstanding.
openHAB Foundation does not restrict any discussions because of it‘s non-profit state and tax excemptions.
The reason for development issues not to be discussed here but on github is due to the fact that some of the main developers don‘t follow the community discussions here on a regular base.
So, what I see REALLY lacking, and forgive me if this is being included in the next version is an ability to schedule.
A forum member did some great work on creating a Virtual Thermostat, but it’s not solid enough for deployment or works across all platforms.
The ability to turn things on, off, up or down or even play scheduled Echo binding alerts or notifications is powerful.
Adding this would be a game changer in my eyes, making it part of the base system so that users don’t need to navigate a very very complex set of rules to get it to function.
OpenHAB provides the framework and accessibility to the parts to build a complex system. It is not designed as a prebuilt system for beginners. Somebody needs to work and learn how to best use this powerful complex system to satisfy their Smart Home desires.
Yes but the long term goal it to make it more accessible to less tech savvy users.
A “simple” scheduling tool would be a big step towrds that
cron is fixed in rules and not a scheduling tool
caldav depends either on a cloud calendar with hoops to jumps though to authorise access (google…) or you own caldav server (Not beginner friendly…)
