Disable Action in RM5.1

[moh]

I am in the process of modifying some of my RM rules which had incorporated some Echo Speaks announcements back to using some virtual switches to trigger announcements in Alexa Routines. This is how I originally made announcements in Alexa prior to using Echo Speaks. I am also in the process of attempting to run Echo Speaks in a local container (not quite there but am hoping to achieve this prior to Heroku disabling my free account),

I do not wish to completely re-write all these RM rules so I have just inserted my virtual switch as an action prior to the Echo Speaks action, then I “disabled” the Echo Speaks action. I know I can also clone the rule then “delete” the Echo Speaks action and add the virtual switch and then Disable the old rule. However, I did not want to have two instances of the rule in RM to decrease the DB.

By just modifying the rule, then using the “disable action” feature, I figured I can just keep the rule. That way, if I can get Echo Speaks to work in a local container, then I can simply “enable” the Echo Speaks action and “disable action” the Alexa trigger (or delete it from my RM rule).

My question: is the rule supposed to continue to work as normal, just skipping the “disabled action” action and moving on through the rest of the rule as though the “disabled” step is not there?

The reason I ask is that when I did this, the rule controlling my Ecobee thermostats (turns off the thermostat when the door/window is open for 5 minutes, then announces that “the thermostat has been turned off since a door/window has been left open for 5 minutes”) seems to no longer work consistently. It used to work with the original RM rule prior to the addition of the “disable action” step. I did not know if this had something to do with the “disable action” feature, or if was a quirk of the Ecobee integration.

I apologize as I’m not at home right now so do not have current access to the logs (which I will check out later). So am just trying to get an idea of how the “disable action” feature is supposed to work (how was it designed to work?). Thanks for any info on this. @bravenel , perhaps you can describe how it is designed to work? Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

[bravenel]

@moh

I did not want to have two instances of the rule in RM to decrease the DB.

Misplaced concern.

@moh

My question: is the rule supposed to continue to work as normal, just skipping the “disabled action” action and moving on through the rest of the rule as though the “disabled” step is not there?

Yes, correct. Disable action causes that action to just be skipped.

@moh

I did not know if this had something to do with the “disable action” feature, or if was a quirk of the Ecobee integration

Not related to disable action.

[moh]

@bravenel

Misplaced concern.

Thanks @bravenel! I should have noted that I also did not want to clutter up my Apps page with a ton of “duplicate” rules (one for Alexa and one for ES for each and every rule I wrote). Also, based on your comment, I guess rules do not contribute much to the DB size?
I also want to add that this “disable action” feature is fantastic as I like to test out a number of different devices with any given rule and this makes it much easier to do so. Along with the cloning feature, this is a great way to experiment with multiple variations of each rule to help determine the best implementation. Thanks for developing this!

[PunchCardPgmr]

I still have a learning curve on the "Wait for" conditions and multiple events.

Thanks to the ease of the DISABLE I was able to methodically back out my mistakes one line at a time while leaving them there aiding to my understanding of what was errant.

Of course I went from lines-of-what-I-thought-to-be pure elegance to lines of BRUTE FORCE to solve it but that's not the point. The ability to "comment out" a command line is indeed nice.