Our app UI is rather clunky. This is something we basically inherited due to an effort to be mostly compatible with SmartThings SmartApps and DTHs. We have plans to greatly improve the UI, but for now, it is what it is. Rule Machine is clearly a complex app, and it has pushed the capabilities of the app ui to their creaky limits. I understand you'd like a nice clean script you could play with, but you'll just have to trust me when I say that won't be forthcoming per se. We may very well create a method to share Rules, but that won't encourage by its very nature editing of a complex json file. When sharing a rule, one would have to deal with device replacements, and that would pretty much require a UI to handle it. This too is planned, but to support the desire users have to take a person's rule, and substitute their own devices in it. That's not the same use case as editing a rule script.
For me it would be a very good way to document all of my rules rather than taking screen shots. What I'd eventually hope for is a method to export not just rules, but every app and device to a text file so that the entire setup could be easily recreated from scratch if necessary. For new users that made a lot of mistakes on the initial setup, it would provide documentation to where it's be easy to start over and just use the portions that they need.
I've been having a play with Node Red on Home Assistant on a Pi mainly for a Harmony Hub interfacing system using a virtual Hue Bridge. That really is a great way to create and edit rules and I find the visual aspect of it very helpful to see what's going one. It allows super easy copy & paste of individual nodes or complete flows. Each node of the logic has the last event and timestamp it processed under it so debugging is very easy as you can see exactly what is happening as the rule runs. If there was any way RM could become a Node Red style interface it would be perfection IMO.
We really need this, I have some very long rules for my Hue dimmer switches, and having to clone and change devices for each switch I deploy is a nightmare!
I can imagine an āexploded viewā of a rule with the whole thing presented in a flat list with it in āmad libsā mode highlighting each device that needs to be selected before the imported rule can run.
It's not so much a "what would it look like" problem so much as it is a "they have to live within the UI framework and App framework that exists within HE or undertake a massive effort of rewriting the whole thing." I believe that's pretty much the roadblock
To add to what @dman2306 wrote, here's Bruce's description of the issues with "sharing" RM rules:
Also want to point out that there are ways to share automations that use Hubitat devices (for example, if one were using Node-RED instead of Rule Machine, or webCoRE for that matter).
Yup, as a developer I'd always say "given enough time and money, I can build you anything you want short of a time machine." Sometimes that time and money was 3 years and $5 million and then the answer became a resounding "no"
I think it could help a lot of new users if old threads could be stickied, because I find myself saying many times over just what you said above.
When another platform like Wink has a mass exodus (which also occurred in the run-up to Iris being shut down), thereās invariably a lot of new ideas and opinions about how hubitat stacks up currently, and what users would like to see in the future. New perspectives are valuable.
The frustrating thing is that many of the ideas are not new, and when the opinions lack the context of whatās already been discussed in the past, and sometimes even clearly explained by hubitat staff directly, the conversations can get repetitive, or even deteriorate into an oldie vs. newbie thing.
This community has remained one of the least toxic online forums Iāve ever participated in, which is great and one of the many reasons I love being here!
@bobbyD what do you think about allowing mods to sticky some of the more notable forum posts that new users would find helpful and informative?
Generally agree this could be helpful, but couldnāt it also cement āthis is the way things are, donāt bring them up againā kind of attitude, especially to the newer users?
Not necessarily. For example, people would like to know why they should be expected to purchase a Lutron Caseta pro bridge to get their Caseta devices working with hubitat when they ājust workedā with wink. People who are already, understandably, kinda grumpy about being asked to pay more money for their home automation habit. Because letās be honest, all of us are addicted to this stuff at least a little .
Trying to explain why in that specific case gets old fast. The info is out there, and thereās even a history about how hubitat did what they could to try to overcome a limitation that they had zero control over and literally never will.
There may always be a tension between some new and old ideas, but hopefully we can all at least agree on the same set of facts at the outset .
That said, their answers could change over time. They may well have said (behind closed doors) "nah we don't want to do that, Wink has that part of the market cornered, not worth trying to compete with them" and now when Wink is out of the picture... who knows what they think!
There are some basic rules of the road in using Hubitat, and in using Rule Machine. These are not hard to learn. Just as with driving, if you drive on the wrong side of the road bad things will happen. There are sign posts where there should be to prevent that. Just above the Remove a device button is the list of the apps where that device is in use. Don't remove a device until you've addressed that list. It even warns you. If you decide to blow by the warning and delete it anyway, why would you be so surprised that you blew something up? That's an example of driving on the wrong side of the road.
That, my friend, is a ridiculous assertion. I'm not blaming the user. The system is the system. We are constantly working on improving it. But, no matter what improvements we make, there will always be things that a user has to learn to make use of it. There is no miracle UI that can replace learning how something works. Home automation is non-trivial. Anything that is non-trivial has to be learned.
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