Simple Feature Requests

[matt (support)]

Hmm... I know we have code in there, and at least at one point it worked correctly, to automatically reconnect on wake. I wonder if it is trying to reconnect but the network services aren't up yet or something.

[hammer32]

- display the last change date of devices in the devices pane of the main window. There is space in there and it is really useful to see when a device last action happened.

I would LOVE to see this! We had to leave for an emergency and I like to check in on the cat by looking at the last time sensors/lights changed. Need to make sure he doesn't accidentally close the door and lock himself in one room!

Thanks!

-Sean

[kennybroh]

I know I've asked about this before and was told this was somewhere on the enhancement list, but I continue to think that one of the few significant shortcomings in the Indigo Touch/web user interface is the absence of the ability to input data or make selections from lists. I was reminded of this again when I implemented the Sonos plugin.

I have a number of Pandora channels and as far as I can tell the only way to select one of them from within Indigo is to hard code an action for each channel. That would be incredibly cumbersome, especially since i have a number of zone players and it appears that I would either have to set up separate actions for each channel for each player, or write code to pick up the specific player and then select the channel. If the UI allowed user text entry or selections from lists, I could manage my entire Sonos system from a single control page if I wanted-- select the player, either enter the name of an artist or song, or select the channel from a list. Also, a text entry field would be an easy and useful way to use the Sonos system to make announcements.

Those are just a couple of examples, but they graphically illustrate the problem and the benefit. Text entry and list selection is so ubiquitous in virtually every other iPhone app and on every other web page it's obviously not a technical UI issue, so I don't understand why it has been such a low priority. Is there some unusual issue with the way data is handled in Indigo that makes this that much of a problem? The Indigo environment itself loads many of the lists for defining devices, actions, etc., so the data is obviously readily available to the server, and I have no doubt third-party developers could dramatically expand the functionality of their plug-ins with this capability.

From my simplistic point of view this would not require any structural change to the current design paradigm for control pages. If the choice for "Display" were device state or variable value, an "Allow user entry" check-box would be enabled for "As text" in addition to the font selections. If no client action were specified it would simply be a text entry field, or if "Select from list" was the client action additional choices would be available to specify the source of the list to display when that object is clicked. If it were a list from a plug in you'd select the plugin and list, if it were a range, you'd specify the upper and lower range, if it were a custom list you could specify the entries, and if you enhanced variables to hold multiple values it could be a variable. If the "Allow user entry" check-box were not checked the user would be limited to the choices in the list; otherwise they could enter a value or select one from the list. Finally, a server action could set the new value or do other things with it.

I'm sure you've thought of all of this and this is just what occurs to me as something easily incorporated into what exists today. I'm sure you will implement it properly, so you can ignore all of my suggestions, but I really hope it is something you will do soon.

Thanks for a great product; I'd just like to see it get even better.

[jay (support)]

It's not particularly hard though it will require nontrivial work. Mostly, though, demand has been sufficiently low so that it just doesn't have a great ROI. We may look at control page enhancements in the next major release though no guarantees about what that will include.

[kennybroh]

I'd be interested to hear what others think. It surprises me this isn't something of wider interest.

[jltnol]

Hey Guys

Just a note that I spent my first weekend away form home. As luck would have it, my Indigo computer did a scheduled re-start while I was away, but the Indigo Server didn't start up. Bottom line is I got the problem solved thru other ways, but from what I can tell, once the GUI Client is started, the server remains running even if you quit the Client.

I'd like to suggest an option to auto start the Indigo Server without having to start the client. No a big deal, really, just seems this would be useful.

Likewise, while away, I had disabled several operations. While this was pretty painless, I was thinking it would have been nice to have all the things I want to dis-able while away in one folder. Of course, I can do that now, but the operations can only reside in one folder at a time, so my suggestion would be to allow any of the operations to reside in more than one folder at a time, much the way that a particular song in iTunes can be in more than one Playlist.

I've got folders set up for Lights, AC&Heat, Security, folders for different kinds of lights....but some actions deal with Security and Lights.... some with Security, Lights, and Alarm, so having things in only one folder makes me choose which is the priority...

The ability to put things in more than one folder would help a lot with housekeeping. Now, I'm NOT talking about allowing Devices in Trigger folders, just that Devices could reside in more than user created Device folder..

[jay (support)]

I'd like to suggest an option to auto start the Indigo Server without having to start the client.

Done.

In the Start Local Server dialog, if you have Start and connect to Indigo Server on this computer selected and have Auto start Indigo Server on user login selected, as soon as you log in to the admin account you installed Indigo under the server will start up regardless of whether the client is running or not. Check the docs for a description of all options when starting the server.

The ability to put things in more than one folder would help a lot with housekeeping.

The paradigm we took was the Mail application's mailbox - where a mail message can only be in a single mailbox/folder at a time. One thing we do have on our list is a way to more easily recognize when objects are disabled. We do this already with devices and we'll likely extend that to Triggers and Schedules as well so that you can see at a glance which ones are disabled.

Thanks for the feedback.

[kennybroh]

Don't know if you've thought of this but it would be very helpful. The other day I was working on control pages which are very similar from room to room and have many controls on them which perform similar functions but for which different values need to be specified in the action settings. Like DirecTV, Hue lights, Sonos etc. None of those appear to permit the use of variables so I had to open up each control and manually change the values. It is very time consuming.

I have worked in several other environments which use a visual screen design tool like the control page editor but which also allow you access to the underlying definition code so you can actually edit the values directly. That would be extremely helpful here. For example, if I have 40 Pandora channels and 8 Sonos players, because Indigo doesn't have a list function (here I go again) I have to make up 8 different control pages--one for each player--and manually bring up the action settings and select a different player for 40 controls. If I could edit the code for the page I could do a quick search and replace and be done....

And back to my pet enhancement request--list selection and/or text input. Is there no way you could open up your api so a plug-in developer could create his own pop-up UI objects?

[jay (support)]

Thanks for the feedback. As I stated above, we have a lot of requests around control pages that we'd love to get to at some point.

[eme jota ce]

Would be nice to be able to "convert" a series of actions in a trigger into an Action Group Action.

For example, I built a bunch of actions into a Sonos Plugin based trigger, but now wish it was an Action in the action group without retyping.

[rjs104]

Hi All,

First off Indigo is a fantastic bit of software, and as I learn more about both the software and what I can do with Home Automation I constantly pleasantly surprised

A couple of thoughts borne out of my own use:

1 - I echo an early posters thought about being able to select something from a list on a control page. I am just getting all my media automation going, and to be able to select from a list of Playlists from Spotify would be great.

2 - Could the list of variables when editing the control page be grouped in the same way that you have them grouped in the variables list? This would make it easier to find the one you're after - my list is already quite long, and I'm only just getting started

More when I have them…

Thanks for all the hard work - keep it up!

Richard.

[kennybroh]

Regarding my earlier thoughts about being able to edit the underlying definition of a control page, just out of curiosity where are the scripts or code for the control pages stored? I assume they reside in your database somewhere since I don't see code modules anywhere. Is it in some script type format? Could you simply export/import that script as a way for an advanced user to make changes more easily than manually clicking on the object in the control page editor? Just wondering.

[matt (support)]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Kenny: the source code for Indigo's Web server, which renders Control Pages for browsers, is inside the /Library/Application Support/Perceptive Automation/Indigo 6/IndigoWebServer folder. Note, however, that Indigo Touch doesn't render HTML/CSS/JS code but rather has its own internal renderer optimized for Indigo content. Thus, it is not customizable.

[kennybroh]

But where does Indigo Touch get the data to render its pages?

[matt (support)]

From the Indigo Server, which reads your Indigo database file (which was created/edited by the Indigo client when you used the Control Page editor).

I'm not sure if this is what you are after, but you can hand or machine edit the Indigo database file (it is XML). It isn't documented and it is subject to change without notice, but it is pretty easy to follow (as far as XML database files go). Just make sure you backup the file before you start tweaking it in case it becomes corrupt. And also shutdown the Indigo Server first -- otherwise it will overwrite any changes you make.