Noob addon developing

Development Add-ons
1

Hi Sorry for the stupid questions but here goes.

I would like to mess around with one of the addons from openHAB 1. I would like to get it running in the most current version of openHAB if possible. I am guessing its much more than just recompiling it in a later version?

Its the Max!Cul addon. it has been archived by the owner so I dont think it can be messed around with on github so I wanted to play around with it to see if I can get it working for my usage?

I have some coding experience with vb/vb6/vba but never used git, java ect.

1} How to make it compatible with the latest openHAB version?
2} What IDE to use to load it up and mess around with it?
3} any how too’s for the setting up of the above?

Thanks

2

Hi Andy,

this should be a good starting point: Developer Guide | openHAB

3

Hi thanks for the reply. I have done all of that as far as i can see. I have git, visual studio with the openHAB extension & Java. all setup. I pulled the project into Visual Studio.

What i am struggling with is the principles around updating the addon for current openhab usage. Am i flogging a dead horse?

I assume there will be references to parts of openhab 1 and java that need updating to current softwares?

I also assume it may of been written in a way that does not work with the current softwares.

Thanks

W

4

The openHAB framework improved in so many ways. I think you want to start as if you have a new binding. You could use the skeleton script. Inspect the old binding, it connects two domains openHAB and the device’s domain. The latter one can probably be added to the project without much refactoring.
Then you have to model the openHAB side in the thing-type.xml etc and create the Thing handlers.

There are more workflows, but this should be straight forward. The skeleton script is a good guide for minimal/essential binding structure

5

There were already a few attempts to migrate the maxcul binding, see:

6

I think everything has been answered but I wanted to summarize to make it clear.

You don’t. You can use it as a reference for how to interact with the Max! devices but OH changed so much between OH 1 and OH 2 that a rewrite of the add-on is required. There is very little if anything you can reuse on the add-on to OH API side of things.

I think most people use Eclipse, IntelliJ, or VS Code.

The developer guide as @seime linked to.

7

Thanks for that. I am working my way up a massively steep learning curve at the moment.

8

The joy will be huge, once you see the channels being populated with your data.