PLEASE ADD a CANCEL Button to windows in the web browser!

[claytonclan]

Hello...

I am running a HE C8 Pro with the latest firmware.

One thing I have noticed is that the web pages for App, at least, only have a 'Done' button at the bottom of the page.

I have noticed this for both the Basic Rule and Room Lighting apps when I create and entry.

There is nothing at the top RIGHT that allows me to CANCEL out of the web page.

And there is only DONE at the bottom of the page!

There are times when my hand or fingers slip as I am scrolling around a page and may cause a change to be made to some entry.

If my scrolling is ONLY to browse the page to confirm things, I would MUCH prefer to have a CANCEL button on the page that would 'throw away' anything on that web page and NOT update what was/is stored into the HE device!

Hence the request to put a CANCEL button on the APP pages, at least. There may be other pages that should have a CANCEL button as well. I have only had my HE for 2 days now, so there is a LOT of things that the HE can do that I have not even thought about as yet.

My thanks for your time and consideration of this request!

Paul

[Slate]

Without pressing Done, nothing is saved. Just close the page and open it again, and it will be the same as it was before.

[claytonclan]

@Slate

My thanks for your reply.

When you are in the Apps group, with an entry open, to 'just close the page', the only obvious option would be to click on Apps again. Which would work.

Or you could move your mouse all over the page to find out what text is clickable, versus just being printed in white, to find out that the 'breadcrumb' line across the top of the pane is clickable. By breadcrumb line I mean 'HE_name > Apps > some_name'. This is doable but you need to mouse all over the page to figure out what is plain text and what is also a hyperlink. Finding out what is clickable on a web page should NOT be a game of 'Find Waldo'.

If I am down one level within an App such as 'Room Lighting' to say the 'Set Up Lighting Periods or Re-Capture Devices' window, the ONLY option to close that window is to either click on 'Done with Periods' which will save what is on the screen or to click on 'Apps' in the left column or in the breadcrumbs to get you out of the entry you were editing. Both of which is not optimal.

I consider it good 'browser window etiquette' to have either an 'X' in the top right corner AND a 'Cancel' button alongside some form of a 'Save the window contents' type of button.

Personally, I'd settle for a Cancel button alongside the Save button, which saves having to scroll back to the top of the window.

Just my two cents on the matter.

Paul

[oldcomputerwiz]

I think in some of the apps any changes are saved as soon as they are made, not when you hit "Done." In this case a cancel button wouldn't help.

[claytonclan]

@oldcomputerwiz

And how do we know that to be the case within an App, across all of them or within some subset of them?

This can NOT be a game of hit or miss.

There NEEDS to be consistency across all the web pages so we know what is going on.

Paul

[JimB]

Paul is correct about consistency.
From accidently causing errors in RM rules, it appears that we are editing the live running rule and when we hit the Update Rule or Done buttons, we are updating the running rule. Not sure about other built-in apps or the community apps.
For devices it appears that we update the device when we hit the Save button or Save and Exit link.

I fully support his request for a Cancel button. Besides discarding any updates,it eliminated the CPU load for the update and makes for a faster UI.

As for other apps and devices, it would be great to have a canel button so any changes would not be saved.

[hubitrep]

@Slate

Without pressing Done, nothing is saved

This isn’t true in general. Input fields can be set to “submit on change” triggering code as soon as one navigates away from the control.

In rule machine for instance you can change log levels and close the page; the change will persist.

[oldcomputerwiz]

@claytonclan

And how do we know that to be the case within an App, across all of them or within some subset of them?

This can NOT be a game of hit or miss.

There NEEDS to be consistency across all the web pages so we know what is going on.

I've been running the HE since 2020 and have not had an issue. I guess I've gotten used to it or just haven't fat fingered much of anything. That's not to say that a cancel button wouldn't benefit some but if memory serves, I think most changes are committed as soon as they are done. A cancel button may involve more work than is perceived.

[JimB]

@hubitrep

@Slate

Without pressing Done, nothing is saved

This isn’t true in general. Input fields can be set to “submit on change” triggering code as soon as one navigates away from the control.

In rule machine for instance you can change log levels and close the page; the change will persist.

Where can I set the option for "submit on change"?

[hubitrep]

@JimB

Where can I set the option for "submit on change"?

I wasn't referencing a user option, just how the app UI input elements can be configured by the app developer.

[claytonclan]

Wow...

I'll admit that I wasn't expecting the UI to be modifying active runtime data structures immediately for a rule as it is entered, piece by piece. Not on my Bingo card for the HE.

In thinking about doing that in other systems from my past, it would not go well unless there was excellent coding and synchronizing in the core program to deal with data structures that may provide conflicting states or data structures that would be incomplete.

If the UI is making immediate changes to the operational data structures I think it is a testament to the design and implementation of the HE Core code to handle all the unexpected issues that could arise and still maintain a solid operational state.

I have been involved with other programs that were problematic under similar conditions.

If the UI is not making immediate changes to the active rule data structures, I think the HE is still pretty cool and surprisingly flexible. I messed up a lot of rules dealing with lighting and it did not crash or flinch. Looking through the list of devices the HE can work with I found a number of use cases for around the house.

The UI question remains.

Can the UI make immediate data/configuration changes to active automation sequences even if it is a multi-step process in order to have the full sequence completely configured?

I ask the question that way to flush out if the basic underlying HE rule capability is there for the company and community to use in their automation applications that can be loaded into the HE. Because, if it is there, we must assume that any of the automation integrations will be coded to use it. Which means that us, as end users, might as well assume that all apps are coded to use it. The final implication being that I, for one, need to be very careful when I call up any page for an automation within the UI! I need to NOT fat finger a data field or click on a field selection dropdown such that is it doesn't select something different than what I had working, unless I want to actually try something different.

In other words, I need to seriously pay attention and be very careful of my actions in the UI.

It also highlights, to me, the need to have backups exported out of the HE from known points in time that have all the active automations working as needed. This way, if I am doing trial and error work to modify an existing automation or create a new one and there are problems, I can roll the HE back to a known working point!

I am currently four days into being a HE owner, so deleting everything using the UI and starting over is not a big deal. A year down the road and it could be a nightmare to recreate from scratch, even with documentation containing screenshots of all the rule pages placed into OneNote.

To that end, I have read about the Hubitat subscriptions to backup configurations into their cloud.

After reading more documentation and poking around some, I came to find out that the HE makes a backup of the active configuration as part of system reboots and once nightly to local HE storage. I found some significant differences between downloading a local backup to my NAS and the Hub Protect/Cloud Backup subscriptions.

https://docs2.hubitat.com/en/user-interface/settings/backup-and-restore

At the moment, I plan to export/download a HE local backup image to my NAS with a filename that has the date and some verbiage about what it contains. More info about the backup I'll put into OneNote, which also lives on the NAS. The NAS is replicated off-site in case the house disappears. We did have an EF2 tornado go directly over the house several years ago. The house stayed on the foundation, fortunately, and none of us were injured. There was a lot of damage and some injuries spread over the 5+ miles along the track of the tornado.

If I end up with dozens of device pairings, it might be easier to use the subscriptions since it sounds like they keep the device pairings. I will need to re-read their subscription documents when the time comes. And likely ask more questions in the forum.

The learning curve is steep, I have not found any magic decoder ring to help get to Nirvana faster, banged my head against a virtual wall a bunch, and waded through documentation that had some issues. I consider this the equivalent of the jigsaw puzzle that enthralls family members here.

As was said on Hill Street Blues:

Let's be careful out there!

Paul