I recently updated my openHAB container to the latest version (4.3.5) and discovered some interesting changes. One feature that caught my attention is the buttongrid. It might be old news to some of you, but I just discovered this amazing feature.
I attempted a first implementation, but unfortunately, the buttons do not appear in the iOS app. Only the header label and the state are visible—not the buttons themselves.
It seems that buttongrid hasn’t been implemented on the ios app. It is supported on Android and basicui (web). So perhaps you could access it using Safari on ios?
Incredibly crap that not all elements are implemented in both apps… Adding a button grid and then only half the people living in the house can use the buttons.
This makes the whole system unpredictable. Can I ever know that a sitemap or similar I create will work on all devices? Theortically this could happen to all sorts of elements and some work on iOS and others on Android. Makes the whole sitemap feature borderline unfeasible to actually use
I mean sure, but it’s completely hopeless to have different support on different devices. It just completely fragments everything and me personally do not have an iphone so I would setup the sitemap according to the documentation and then 5 days later a family member says theres no buttons…
Of course it’s open source and free software so it’s not like you can complain to support or demand your money back but it makes sense to implement these sorts of things in some logical order to maintain compatibility. Sure, one thing mismatches, not the end of the world but that could quickly escalate to create a whole mess. It’s not like OpenHAB is beta version 0.0.2. It’s “stable“ since many years and I think it would make sense to keep compatability between web/android/ios up to sync with the releases.
I think sometimes some open source projects take a too slack approach to things like this and it just ends up being a mess and ends up hurting the project. Honestly I would rather see e.g buttongrid not be merged into OpenHAB before it works on the devices where it would actually be used. Now it’s unfortunately just confusing.
There will be subtle differences across different clients (android, ios, web) e.g. multiple buttons behaviour, scrolling / wrapping, etc.
ios just had major new features+improvements and now android is lagging behind (with the exception of buttongrid).
Each client is implemented completely separately, totally different code, by totally different groups of people. Hence: test! It is the least you could do, whether you’re using a free open source product or a multi-million dollar program.
We could always use some more help / volunteers! But if you couldn’t help contribute code, you could open an issue on github and hope that a developer would resolve that issue.
In this particular case, wait and hope that the above PR gets merged soon.
Yes I understand. Things get complicated for a lot of different reasons.
My only feedback (not to you or someone else specifically) is basically:
openHAB is “stable“ and people run it in their real homes with their real families. The main way for most to control their home would be the Android and iOS apps. I think it would make sense from the whole “proejct“ side of things to keep compatibility in sync. Sure they can look different or not be as fast or fancy but when there’s different support for elements etc. these elements become virtually useless and for users it becomes a guessing game if the config they do will work later on.
So again, nothing against anyone working on either app or openHAB, you’re all doing a great job. But from a users perspective things deviating between the clients (again Android app and iOS app are basically the main features of openHAB in my opinion, noone walks around turning their light on with a laptop and the webgui) will always be confusing and not user friendly. And this confusion comes from someone who has been using and following the project for 10+ years so I’d imagine I have above average experience with it.
The buttongrid is a very neat feature so let’s hope to see it in both apps soon
I wish and while I am not affected by the buttongrid issue, as I’m not using it, the fact that the iOS app cannot handle local SVG icons correctly, with the companion Apple Watch app even worse, is a major dealbreaker for me. I think this failure might need to be added to the documentation, stating that iOS users cannot use local monochrome SVG icons, and are stuck with the limited selection of remote icons.
The Android app however handles local SVG icons just fine with the correct ‘Adjusted User Colors’ dark mode and ‘iconcolor’ variants without any issues.
Adding a button grid and then only half the people living in the house can use the buttons.
and while I am not affected by the buttongrid issue, as I’m not using it, the fact that the iOS app cannot handle local SVG icons correctly, with the companion Apple Watch app even worse, is a major dealbreaker for me. I think this failure might need to be added to the documentation, stating that iOS users cannot use local monochrome SVG icons, and are stuck with the limited selection of remote icons.