Anyone can voice their opinion. But simply voicing your opinion dues not mean others have to agree and without someone to do the work of implementing it nothing will result in the voicing of the opinion. Repeatedly voicing the opinion without attempts to actually do something about it is pretty much just complaining for the sake of complaining. It doesn’t solve anything.
Ultimately, the developers are competent and have made the best decisions they can based on the information at the time and the willingness of someone to work on it. Endless arguments on the forum do nothing, especially without issues and feature requests. And even with that, someone has to volunteer to implement it.
I think what gets me the most about such threads is the people complaining somehow think that anything they are saying is something we haven’t considered before. That somehow we are not competent enough to see things the same way. Or worse, we don’t lack competency, we just don’t care or are actively malicious.
That’s the part that hurts.
It’s always: why is it this way? That’s stupid, you should do it my way. After expaining why things are the way they are we end up with OpenHAB doesn’t care about it’s users. It’s exhausting and explains some of the reactions on this forum.
I also give the benefit of the doubt to those who raise the issues. I’m sure that’s not the intent. But if you are digging a hole and someone wonders by, munching on a sandwich and starts to explain to you how you are digging that hole all wrong without even offering to pick up a shovel and help, you might understand how theses types of threads come across.
Loads of respect for what you and @mstormi contribute. I tried very hard to make what I wrote not a complaint. I do not contribute anything close to the amounts others do, but I try to share from time to time. And when I do I am always trying to be constructive. Granted, what I wrote here is not so much. I hope you understand that it stems from a passion towards openHAB (as a “simple” user) and towards getting other people on board. I understand that threads like this are tiresome. It was in no way my intention to belittle what the team does.
I quoted you but I should have been more clear that I’m not singling you out and talking to the thread in general. I didn’t really have any complaints about your posts in specific. It was just that one sentence that I waned to address over all.
It’s a typical user feeling you express here… so the upgrade broke some functionality and now you have to adapt your setup to work around that and that ****es annoys you off. I understand that. Yes I really do, I’m a user too and I’ve been there multiple times myself, at times when there were no docs and noone to ask for help.
And believe it or not I’m a text advocate, too, so I was convinced it was just
because some selfish anon dev decided in favor of some direction (UI) I disagree with anyway.
Now I’m (usually) polite and aware they are volunteers so I couldn’t voice that but w.r.t. to the matter they still should not have done it.
So let’s better voice that indirectly but let’s ensure it’s audible and understood by the addressees.
That’s now the one hand side of the medal. Turning it, however, reveals some more possible explanations, it’s …
a side effect that the dev is not aware of
OH is damn complex.
Multiple people work in dev, independent of each other for the most part
a known bug
an inevitable breaking change no backwards compatible solution exists for
(for example you cannot force all v2 + v3 changes back into v1 text format)
a breaking change the dev is aware of but believes a reasonably “priced”
alternative exists for
a documented breaking change that you (user) have not read the docs for
(an unfortunately not seldomly encountered habitude among users is that they
think devs or “someone” they cannot even pinpoint needs to tell them about
everything that affects their setup.
Personally, individualized and to the point.
a user fault in understanding or implementation
a no longer maintained feature (because the original dev no longer
contributes)
a breaking change that there is an alternative available for that you (user)
are not aware of but so many other users are that the dev believes it is
obvious and he does not need to state the obvious
[anyone feel free to get on with this list, it isn’t comprehensive for sure]
No your map transformation is not a good example at all because noone to
take part in this thread but yourself knows what it is about and if any of
the points from my list applies.
My suggestion would be they in the first place should stop asking suggestive questions. Next, they should not call the current state a shortcoming or use whatever other pejorative wording unless they have it confirmed by some source that is authoritative on the matter (the dev is but there may also be others).
Because doing so annoys people. It’s annoying right all those people that work for them, for free. That have “the hands full” (someone’s statement on devs).
BTW these are not just the devs, it’s all contributors they annoy this way.
It’s also those to write docs, those to help with testing, those to support on the forum. It’s also people that cannot give them what they want even if they wanted to.
That’s annoying and demotivating to us. Yes us FWIW it was me to create that table you referenced, must have been one of my - how did Rich call it? malicious ? - weak moments. That is why I’m opposing so heavily and even more so as it is an ever-repeating pattern that reliably comes up every some months. And yes I’m tired of this (to avoid saying ****ed off although that is what I am).
I’m trying to tell all of these people to stop annoying the most productive and protectworthy players in this game. If my attempts to make them stop annoy us come across to you as bossy, I apologize.
(although you should be fair with your boss, even he be right at times).
I do to protect and keep motivation up for all contributor’s, really.
I’ll still be doing in some months time when someone else or the same will be raising the same thing again.
So let’s take this one
as an accident then.
This one now is pretty well done given it’s rather an insult than a complaint.
I’m sure it was just meant to be funny given your own lectures on how to do SW development right.
First, my apologies. I don’t know how best to quote in line when @mstormi quoted my whole post. I’ll do my best with block quotes and mark them to try reduce confusion.
I’m labeled as complaining - well and good. From where I come from in the software industry, user feedback is so very important to understand what we’re doing right and wrong. What isn’t coming across as we thought it was. 10x users have the same problem but don’t say anything. Those aren’t helpful, the ones who provide feedback are helpful in my view.
I’m also trying to help the users that do ask the questions, receive responses, but there is a gap. In my life I’ve identified gaps before, written and delivered seminars on bridging the gaps.
For me, just to show what I believe would have been helpful and cut off the need for anyone coming back months later:
Text based config is fully supported, yes. It should work just the same as it did in OH2 (except in the new directory as mentioned in the documentation). Update the .things file, and it should be picked up, no need for GUI and no change for OH3. We just released OH3 and the docs are still coming together, so maybe it’s not clear.
Is it not working for you just like it did in OH2?
In the same vein as your request for my apology, which I agreed and did, I’d appreciate if you were to acknowledge that in this response you are making things up about my intentions, guessing and generalizing, going to extremes, and then responding to your own words. I believe it paints an unfair and inaccurate picture of me.
I think some feel my contributions, though sledgehammers, may be helpful, you don’t and that’s alright with me, it’s not required.
@hmerk, sorry, as I read through the (now confusing) thread, I understood it was a response to the use of text files being clear. I didn’t agree. I didn’t read it as being about picking a path, no, you are correct.
I acknowledge guessing or extrapolating on your #2 … then again I started that with “I’d think …” so I made it clear upfront I do, didn’t I.
And there probably is a misunderstanding on #3, “in your words” was meant to refer to the term “problem” before it (because you used that term but I think the term “problem” is not appropriate here).
I didn’t mean to say “There is a problem in your words …” but “there is the underlying problem that the software does not have the capability to write into files”.
I’m sorry on the rest but I don’t share your interpretation. I could try to counter or mirror your linguistic analysis to show you’re doing yourself what you are accusing (reproaching? infringing?) me of, but given I’m no native speaker and even had to consult the dictionary to compose this response I think that would not be a fair game. Let alone pointless as it won’t help anybody and is just a waste of time.
Yes as you say yourself you’re using sledgehammers but while I acknowledge your good intents I don’t think they are helpful but rather the opposite.
Setting aside drama, I offer this up and ask for feedback. Confirmation or correction. Just to have it in one place:
I think it’s clear that text and GUI are both supported. Pros/Cons of each are written up. People have opinions, etc. but both are intended to be supported. Not worrying about choices, paths, etc., I just want to list what I believe I’ve learned are configuration options:
OH2 style text files should work the same provided they are in the new directory. Limitations and pros/cons apply.
JSONDB files are recommended to be updated and are closer to the source of the truth. These are text files in json format and thus can be bulk updated, backed up, but only modified when the system isn’t running.
OH2 style items from your previous text config files can be bulk imported as @rlkoshak demonstrated via the GUI. There doesn’t appear to be the same for things.
The GUI configuration has received the most updates given it has the most requests. It is the most full featured and also is subject to some limitations and pros/cons as noted in the docs.
Thanks for this link, it does describe how to contribute. I guess my point was “It’s difficult to document something I can’t use and don’t know how it works or is intended to work”.
Thanks @Andrew_Rowe. To me there are four options not two (GUI vs. Text), three of those could be considered as ‘text config’ whether intentional or not.
This one, no. jsondb files are not recommended to be updated.
They get updated when you use the (recommended) GUI but I don’t think this is what you meant.
You really shouldn’t touch them and I think noone should recommend anyone to do it.
Yes you can but it’s a hack you should not use until things have gone badly wrong or you know really really well what you’re doing there.
There are large risks associated with that (e.g. there’s no syntax or consistency checking), too large to recommend this to anyone.
I do not contribute anything close to the amounts others do, but I try to share from time to time. And when I do I am always trying to be constructive. Granted, what I wrote here is not so much. I hope you understand that it stems from a passion towards openHAB (as a “simple” user) and towards getting other people on board. I understand that threads like this are tiresome. It was in no way my intention to belittle what the team does. 