Is this a burden, that you plan your rule before editing it? Adding Create New Condition within the current Edit Expression UI is very unlikely to happen, and really is just feature creep that brings no new functionality.
Yes this is a burden and has nothing to do with planning the edits. It has to do with the only current way to add a new condition is to select and/or to include it to your rule, only to turn around and have to delete what you added with the and/or after you are then provided the condition to place it where you actually intend for it to be.
But it's fine run your rule machine how you choose
This is not true. There is the entire section at the bottom of the Actions section where you can create and edit Conditions. So it is easy to create a new Condition, and then edit the expression to include it in the expression. Any Conditions created there do show up as options in the edit expression section, where you insert a new expression token. All of the Conditions are exposed in that bottom section, and are available to use.
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I finally figured this out yesterday 
Editing expressions replaces them in the rules. The struggle is real. Glad to see Iām not the only one.
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Well, I give. It's implemented now. Next release....
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Hi all, just joined the board here so I could comment on this as my first comment. I've been learning Hubitat for a couple of weeks now and it's been a struggle even though I'm not new to programming. The interface for the apps has a steep learning curve especially Rule Machine which isn't too surprising as it contains a lot of power. I'm guessing the limits of what can be done with a web based app is responsible for much if it. I keep thinking pop up detailed explanations of what a field or drop down menu is for would be helpful on a hover event. I too had no idea what the Manage Conditions box was for but did find if I tried clicking it I'd get myself in trouble.
I don't want to be too critical here as I know I don't have a lot of patience and like to dive right in without reading a lot of documentation. Like any programing language it's great fun to suddenly grok a new idea and get something working well for the first time so I'll keep at it as I love the promise of this device. I just keep thinking how do complete newbies learn this without running away screaming 
and would love to see it easier to sell more and take over the world!
-Paul
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Welcome to Hubitat!
Iām not a programmer (I work in the medical field), so I did it by completing borking the hub with rules that created race conditions, or just ran multiple instances over and over until the hub would lock up. Then I broke down and read the documentation. After that, a lot of trial and error.
The best way to go about it is to use Simple Automations, Motion Lighting, and Button Controller for as much as possible. Then try getting things done in Rule Machine that cannot be done otherwise.
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There are 3 icons in the upper right corner when you are building rules. The 
, the 
and the 
.
The question mark takes you to the documentation. The monitor/TV takes you to youtube. This is what happens when I click on that while in a rule. There are other videos in that series that are pretty helpful.
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Hi Ken, On a scale from 1 to 10 how frustrating has it been for you? For me, not being able to edit the code directly is very disappointing as cutting and pasting and modifying values directly is what I'm used to. Also I quickly wanted to do more than the simple stuff so I started with Rule machine right away.
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You do get used to Rule Machine after a while. It really isn't that bad once you figure out the flow. It would be nice to get a more modern interface, but it isn't like you are digging around in there every day.
You started with the hardest and most complex thing first. That is likely what is causing frustration. It helps to work with and understand the simple apps first to get used to the Hubitat system. Rule Machine is very powerful, but unnecessary (and overkill) in many cases.
You could write your own app if that works better for you. I don't mean that in a snarky way, some people can whip up an app faster than using the built in ones. (Not me!) And dedicated apps are usually smaller and lighter and therefore quicker than Rule Machine.
There are even community based apps that serve this purpose, Webcore and Event Engine are two examples of Rule Machine "substitutes". There are also hundreds of very good and dedicated apps on this forum, and someone would be glad to recommend one to you if you want suggestions to solve a specific automation.
Well, Iām not a programmer, but I was used to SmartThings and WebCore which helped. Being able to use my pc to create the automations made the transition easier. Iām so glad I donāt have to do everything from my phone anymore.
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That makes sense. Can't imagine doing all this on a phone! Would you say we are still in the early life of hubitat? I just lost a lot of work because I hosed the whole system with groovy exceptions. I had to restore from a backup this morning and lot all the work I did today with which was a lot. Thinking of having to do all those clicks to recreate my complex Pico code is almost too much to bear!
I've thought about investigating writing apps but am a long way from that right now. I have to be convinced this platform is worth the effort and after my experience today I'm not so sure. See my message to Ken below. I hate losing work to system corruption, especially when it's so much manual labor to recreate it. I know, I need to backup more often, but I thought I did and don't see the latest one in my downloads folder so I'm not even sure that mechanism is working reliably.
Is what youāre doing too much for the built in āButton Controllerā, or the very good community app āAdvanced Button Controllerā?
Also, regarding backups, I usually back up to my PC. Most of my devices are Zigbee so I could restore the backup to another hub if it ever failed and only have to rejoin my devices.
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Ken, I believe so but don't know about 'Advanced Button Controller". I wanted to make the best use of a five button Pico wireless wall switch by having single buttons cycle through color and brightness settings. Also, today I had it controlling all three zones in my area separately until I lost the code in the crash. I may end up trying Webcore as the video I saw looked awesome and I'm very bummed from the setbacks today. I'm now seeing flakiness even after restoring from an earlier backup so I'm concerned about the reliability of this platform. It almost seems like I need a development hub and a stable working hub to put well tested rules on. Bummer!
If you create "scenes" you can accomplish this with ABC very easily. Here is the link: Advanced Button Controller (ABC)
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Yep. I love ABC, it works terrific. Much easier and cleaner to use than other apps.
It's been a few days and I've loaded the Hubitat Package Manager, the ABC, and Webcore. Yes, ABC is a good intermediate tool for button control. But Webcore, OMG, is awesome!!! Webcore has a learning curve as well but the design is so well laid out, the UI so modern, with all the little touches built in that I hoped would be there it's given me the confidence to move forward with this platform!
I have run into a snag however and I've developed a theory that I want to run by you guys. I recreated in a piston the logic to cycle though colors on my hue lamps but was getting inconsistent results when testing. I think the cause might be from the corruption I got when I broke Rule Manager 4.0. Even though I removed the app I think there still may be some of those rules staying hidden in the background and acting on my button presses to set the lights. To test this theory I added new Pico switch and created Webcore rules for that switch and different set of hue lamps. And they worked perfectly!
Another oddity I've notice since the crash. When I adjust a color using a dashboard tile, then hit the X to close the color adjusting window, the color on the bulb changes but itself to another color!
Is there any way to clean the slate of the old RM rules or other corruption without a factory reset? To allay my fears I'm considering purchasing another Hubitat and starting from scratch, and if that works I'd factory reset the first one to have another backup.
