Without realising I clicked simple install to simply get it up and running to have a quick look. After realising some of the limitations I’ve now set the config file to the standard installed and restarted it. However, even after restarting I’m still not finding any of my items in the /etc/openhab2/items directory.
The bindings and items are appearing in paperUI, but the config folders are empty except for the single readme file saying to refer to the docs/ (I am expecting them to be there as indicated at the end of: http://docs.openhab.org/configuration/index.html )
I have installed (and operating) half a doz Hue lights, a couple of S20/Orvibo power points, Chromcast and Kodi and all these are working, I just can’t find any configuration for them
Any advice on how to reacquire them would be appreciated.
I want to set some groups and look at making a sitemap, but the items, things and the bindings folders are empty. As per the above I expected these to be populated, but they’re not. I don’t know if I should just create them manually or if they’d conflict. I’m not even sure how to create them manually.
The things and items created via PaperUI are not stored in config files, but just in the internal database.
This internal database consists of both, objects created from PaperUI and objects created from config files. The objects created from config files have priority over “discovered” objects.
If you have more than a handful of items and are not scared from configuration files i would suggest to use the config files. (Search and Replace and Copy & Paste are much more powerful than manual edits.)
ahhh got it now. I took the previously mentioned page to suggest they were merged in the files, I didn’t realise it just meant internally. That makes sense. In which case, I’ll begin populating them. Thanks.
edit: which has got me thinking, do I need to create them in the config files to use them in other config files or can I use the internal database ones (for example: in sitemaps without having things and items listed in the config files?) I’ll try that first. But thanks, I’ll see how I go
No, you can reference both Things and Items created in PaperUI and Things and Items created in text config files in your items, sitemap, HABPanel, Persistence, Rules. For example, all of my Zwave Things are autodiscovered and therefore created in PaperUI. But ALL of my Items are defined in .items files, include those linked to channels of zwave Things.
If you use ESH Designer, it will be unaware of those Things and Items created in PaperUI and incorrectly mark them as errors.
You cannot create an Item or Thing of the same name in both places.
I normally just use nano or a text editor for most editing from the command line, but in the case of tools like ESH Designer, is it best to put those auto-discovered items into the config files manually? Is there a method of dumping everything out?
Especially when learning OH, I highly recommend ESH Designer or the openHAB VSCODE plugin. The language the Rules DSL is written in is not well known, the errors are not very informative much of the time, and at least in ESH Designer you can use <ctrl><space> to discover what methods are available on various parts of the OH objects.
For the most part, if it is autodiscovered, I leave them in the JSONDB. Everything else I write in text files. Over time I might migrate some of my Items to PaperUI but I rely upon a lot of 1.x bindings and PaperUI can’t handle that.
