What virtual device can I place on a dashboard that gives me the ability to click multiple times either up or down with mouse clicks? Just like a dimmer installed in a wall. Having this ability provides the same User Interface between the wall dimmer and a dahboard.
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I installed seven dimmers in a kitchen. The kitchen has four scenes: Off, Low, High & Max. Three of the seven dimmers have the ability to command these "scenes". Off is any number of clicks down. Low is one click up. High is two clicks up. Max is three clicks up. All of this is working with Rule Machine seeing the clicks and commanding the scenes.
I also have three virtual switched that are On/Off devices that control the scenes -- Low, High and Max. If all three of these virtual switches are off, all the lights in the kitchen are off. These virtual switches are on a Dashboard and Rule Machine sees the dashboard changes and updates the scenes accordingly. This is also working.
I would like to have a virtual device that behaves just like one of the dimmers in the kitchen wall and place it on a dashboard. If you click up once, Low Scene. If you click up twice, High Scene. If you click down any number of times, everthing goes off. And the like -- just like the dimmers in the kitchen wall.
I tried using the dimmer from the kitchen on the dashboard with the button template for the tile. The resulting dashboard tile does not have the ability to click up and down. It appears the only options for this tile are: double click, hold, push and release.
I also tried a virtual button -- it seems to have the same limitations as mentioned above.
Just think of "up" and "down" as different button numbers in the same virtual button. Up might be button 1 and down button 2. In your dashboard create tiles for these two buttons with different types of presses, then use the built-in button controller app to respond accordingly. You may need to do something different for triple press. Also, the interaction with the tile may not be that you double click it with the mouse, rather, that you have separate tiles for the different options.
Alternatively, create a virtual button device where they are all single click / push and you match the scenes to each one. You don't have the physical limitations you have with the dimmer, needing to use double and triple presses to make the most out of the available buttons.
Three virtual buttons on the dashboard, one per scene, is my original solution to the problem -- this is working.
It seems to be problematic to match the User Interface between a real dimmer and a tile on the dashboard. It seems that a dashboard tile should not have the limitations of a real dimmer -- as you said. A tile should be able to match the functionality of a real dimmer as a result. Perhaps we just do not have that ability with a dashboard tile -- yet?
Not quite... What I was referring to was the fact that in setting up and using a virtual button device, you don't have to match the way the physical device is configured. With the physical dimmer you need to use double and triple taps in order to make the most of the buttons you have available, whereas in HE, the virtual button is essentially behind the scenes (pardon the pun), and you can setup individual buttons like you have for each scene.
This topic is fairly similar to a different thread (Fire an action when switch is turned on or off while already on or off - #7 by bertabcd1234) and @bertabcd1234 created a possible solution. Basically, it allows you to create virtual switch that can always generate an ON event even if the switch is already on. So, your dashboard can have it looking like a switch rather than a button. You'll need Rule Machine to write the commands necessary, but it might help get you closer to what you want rather than three buttons.
I don't expect so, in the sense of dashboards being able to match the user interaction with the tile compared to the physical dimmer. The likelihood of this happening, I expect, would be low, needing to make sure similar detection of multiple presses is possible across different browsers and mobile devices, in order for a consistent outcome. I'm not even sure if a triple click would be detectable in Javascript... but I haven't looked into it.
I think Greg wants the ability to double and triple click / press a dashboard tile to align with how he interacts with the physical device, rather than having separate tiles for different scenes.
Right, but @greg1 could put a virtual device that simulates the behavior as an in-between. As long as the dashboard allows multiple ON presses even if the switch is already on, the virtual device could control the real life dimmer and keep everything in sync.
Actually cone to think of it...
This may also be worth a look. I expect it will cycle through the scenes, but would probably end up in the right scene.
