New color controller QA VS old color controller QA

[Sankotronic 2,370]

Hello Fibaro,

 

After updating my HC3 to the latest beta I noticed that you did some changes to the color controller QA and actually break my existing QA. Here is how my color controller QAs looked before upgrade:

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As you can see from above picture, color picker now shows properly and user can switch between color picker or sliders.

 

Also, I really liked how buttons looked before and now there are ugly, hardly readable orange plates which does not look like buttons anymore. I mean, I know that skeuomorphism is replaced by flat designs in early 2010s thanks to the Microsoft and the needs to shorten design times (since time is money and profit is everything, who really care about human well being anymore). BTW Light theme is no much better with those dull, blue plates and white text on them. 

 

I really never liked flat design since it is not based on beauty or likeness, but on pure profitism and lazyness.

 

Now IMPORTANT QUESTION: How I can get color picker on my existing QA? Is that even possible or I have to rebuild them under the new firmware version or replace existing ones?

 

I do have one suggestion too. You should definitely consider adding at least a simple interface customization option so that users can at least choose colors of the QA buttons and maybe even selection between flat or neumorphic look and feel of QAs. This way you will not have to spent lots of time to the design and therefore increase your profits and still have most of the users happy.

 

For those who does not know much about design can Google on this words: flat design, skeuomorphism and neumorphism

[Bodyart 231]

It's a Holiday weekend, but I'm very curious, what reactions you will earn from Fibaro (@m.roszak

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@A.Socha) dear Zoran @Sankotronic.

[m.roszak 763]

On 3/30/2024 at 10:24 AM, Sankotronic said:

 

Now IMPORTANT QUESTION: How I can get color picker on my existing QA? Is that even possible or I have to rebuild them under the new firmware version or replace existing ones?

If you check the QA example that you added you will see that it uses colorComponents property, not color (old version).
We moved to colorComponents property and setColorComponents action about 2 years ago.

You can still use the old ones (those are still available for backward compatibility - just disable using new views in QA settings.

If you like new pickers, use colorComponents property and related action as in the QA example from the system.

[Sankotronic 2,370]

Hi @m.roszak ,

 

My complaint still stays since that does not answer my question.

First of all that checkbox says "Use the new views in mobile application ", but it changes new view also on browser interface.

Another thing is that if new view is checked then I expect that I see new color picker and not only orange circle with plus inside.

If your developers knew that previously made color controller QA does not support new color picker then wouldn't it be normal that this checkbox remains unchecked after upgrade?

 

Anyway, now I guess that my color controller QA made before this beta upgrade can't use new color picker?

 

BTW - adding new possibilities is nice, but since it is not followed by explanation and examples how to use it is in vain for most of the users except a few gurus.

[m.roszak 763]

On 4/2/2024 at 5:15 PM, Sankotronic said:

If your developers knew that previously made color controller QA does not support new color picker then wouldn't it be normal that this checkbox remains unchecked after upgrade?

It is done like that now, it was checked only in 5.153 beta. From 5.154 and higher it will be switched off.
The only problem is that if you went thru 5.153 you need to disable it manually. 

[Sankotronic 2,370]

Hi @m.roszak ,

 

Thanks for explanation. I skipped 5.153 but this option is still checked when I import my QA that was built on 5.150.

 

Yubii Home with FW 5.150 shows my QA like this and Yubii Home app v2.0.3 on iPhone 14 iOS 17.4.1:

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Details, details, details.. There are more discrepancies to mention. For example slider for Brightness in new look is renamed to Level on browser, but it is still called Brightness in Yubi app. Also when new look is checked and instead of color circle sliders are selected they do not have circles in color, but have name Blue, Red and Green.

 

After QA is restarted in old look with color sliders they are all set to 0 (I guess user must update their status), but when first used any of the color sliders they change order and that can be seen on above pictures. On browser blue slider for some reason jumped to top position, but on Yubii app is on the bottom

 

I wish i have more time to discuss all latest changes that you made some for better, but also some for the worse. Usually there is more for worse than for better since 5.150. New Yubii Home app version 2.0 looks a bit better, but during testing my color controller QA I get several times notification about lost connection and even received e-mail that there where more than 5 failed attempts to connect to my HC3 even app was already connected. But this is for another topic.

 

I have to mention here that your support for developers is minimal since developer site is updated almost never after bringing some nice new features. I'm looking here

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Is that even proper link or you have one with more useful information? Guess not...

 

You are lucky to have people like @jgab, @cag014, @SmartHomeEddy and some others that are actually doing job for you and helping people with Home Center programming and also doing some really excellent QA and scenes.

 

I will eventually continue to do some developing for HC3, HC3L and Yubii Home, but when I finally see from your firmware updates that you found where you want to go with your home automation and stop wandering around without a clear goal.

 

Until then, will continue to play, but nothing serious. My HC2 is doing excellent job and even if it dies I still have one spare to replace and use for next several years, until you finally do something nice with already not so new game changing gateways.

 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2024 by Sankotronic
Corrected HC3 firmware version to 5.154

[m.roszak 763]

22 minutes ago, Sankotronic said:

And to finish this long post about only color controller QA changes, here is how my QA that is now made on new FW 5.153 looks when "Use the new views in mobile application" option is unchecked on both browser and Yubii app:

About that, we know that we have some native controls there built in - it is not ideal and we have plans for changing this somehow.

The same with the "orange" views in webUI, we are in the process of aligning everything to make sure it will look the same everywhere.

Btw., great work for summarising this. 

About that:
 

22 minutes ago, Sankotronic said:

Thanks for explanation. I skipped 5.153 but this option is still checked when I import my QA that was built on 5.150

My bad, it is not as simple as I said - to clarify:

 

Types with new views set to true by default:

• "com.fibaro.binarySwitch",
• "com.fibaro.colorController",
• "com.fibaro.doorLock",
• "com.fibaro.multilevelSwitch",
• "com.fibaro.rollerShutter",
• "com.fibaro.baseShutter",
• "com.fibaro.player"

the rest of the types keep the original webview by default.

[Sankotronic 2,370]

Hi @m.roszak ,

 

Also ask developers to correct default code for color controller. Code line 59 should be:

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and not as it is now:

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My code is testing all values regardless of the light type that is controlled and my app crashed on "white" component until I corrected above line.

Many users will not detect this with original code, but "white" component will not work.

[m.roszak 763]

Yep, I already created a task for that like 2 weeks ago

PS
From upcoming 5.160 GA version:

[Sankotronic 2,370]

4 minutes ago, m.roszak said:

Yep, I already created a task for that like 2 weeks ago

 

If this task was created two weeks ago, then you should find few seconds of your time to publish it as know issue. This just proves that user support is insufficient.

 

BTW - When do you plan to update

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? 

[m.roszak 763]

It was an issue in the beta, sorry but I cannot write down every known issue for every version because it will the only thing I will be doing  (small joke)

 

2 minutes ago, Sankotronic said:

BTW - When do you plan to update

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? 

that is actually a great question, not sure if this portal won't be killed as on manuals.fibaro.com you can find exactly the same things (ok, not exact, it is updated there some time ago).

[Sankotronic 2,370]

9 minutes ago, m.roszak said:

that is actually a great question, not sure if this portal won't be killed as on manuals.fibaro.com you can find exactly the same things (ok, not exact, it is updated there some time ago).

 

Aha, I can then delete link to

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?

 

What is then left? Where I have to go from

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?

I guess then

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? That site is useful, but I failed to find complete manual on building QA except bits and pieces.

Do you actually refer to this:

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or

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and some links from this pages?

 

Hmmm... many links to many places, hard to maintain and hard to find and follow. Also, i didn't notice that any of this pages scattered around where updated recently?

 

 

[jgab 2,642]

Agree, good summary @Sankotronic

Ex. really messy now with 2 "viewLayout" structures in the device structure for QAs. legacy (web) and new (mobile). Feels like a hack and hope to see a consolidation here for a more expressive ui model for both web and app.

 

Unfortunately I think this says a lot

_{9 hours ago, m.roszak said:}

On the other hand, you need to also understand that we have a lot of customers to look for, and power users actually writing their own integrations are in less than 2% of the people using the system. 
That's just numbers. The same like 90% (about) of the systems do not contain any QuickApp. Anyway, as you see - we still working on those, probably not as fast as you like but still.

(from a conversation with @Neo Andersson)

 

I guess this is why we in the 11 years I've been a Fibaro user we haven't got decent development tools and only a crippled runtime.
Expecting Fibaro HC to become as capable as something like Home Assistant... we should forget about - it seems to be positioned as a shrink-wrapped system for bulk-installation by certified "installers". Like a low cost competitor to KNX - and with the acquisition by Nice even more so... More "digital wiring" than an "Intelligent home"...

Of course, for this shrink-wrapped package they need a stable server/controller, not too advanced for certified installers - here they could have chosen the "HASS path", opened up, benefitting from the evolutionary speed of open source (

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 for core), but they chose the closed, controlled, glacier speed path, over time building up a huge pile of technical debt...

So it's really nothing to hope for, for us that wants to build an intelligent home. I guess that Fibaro's decent devices paired with something like HASS is probably the way to go if z-wave is the future, as Fibaro's own platform is increasingly becoming an anachronism. On the other hand their market is the "digital wire", where the future money is in bulk sell of devices in competition with agile, opportunistic Chinese vendors -  It's not the intelligent brain of the home that integrates anything and everything (we will soon have an avalanche of "AI" engines for home control, engines requiring integration with a multitude of data sources to make intelligent decisions - good luck with that....)

 

I've built quite sophisticated (If I can say so myself) systems on top of the relatively barren platform provided by Fibaro, but now I feel the development is going in the wrong opinionated direction requiring increasingly acrobatic efforts to code around (partly also due to the technical debt)... which then of course causes troubles for other developers using my code...

 

Anyway, I guessing I'm on your line @Sankotronic, I already moved away from the HC2 but I'm seriously contemplating pausing my time developing for the HC3 too , at least for the time being until the dust settles. Will just wait and see if they decide they want to support developers seriously (well, I hoped for 11 years, so I'm the fool here) ... or it's time to move to a platform that where efforts are not just a game of diminishing returns...

 

So, we need to understand that this forum is a community for the 2%, mostly voicing our frustrations into the void, as it's not how they make their money or how they position/see themselves in the market...  This mismatch between what this forum think Fibaro is, and what Fibaro thinks it  is, is the root of many dreamers' visions for an "intelligent home" becoming a "haunted home"  

 

Sorry for this rant, but I'm worried that I'm increasingly fulfilling the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again (because nothing changes) and hoping for a different outcome...  

[m.roszak 763]

12 hours ago, jgab said:

Sorry for this rant, but I'm worried that I'm increasingly fulfilling the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again (because nothing changes) and hoping for a different outcome...  

So, I think you are now half-empty glass guys at the moment and it just makes me sad.

 

11 hours ago, jgab said:

Unfortunately I think this says a lot

You took one part from this conversation and assumed the worst, I just showed some numbers, and called those "just numbers".
I also added that no matter what we are still working on improving everything, aligning the views, making it more user-friendly, and developing the system to be faster, easier, more easy to use, and giving more options for integrations. I just can't give you any timelines for changes in the editor because this is not an easy job to do and we already working on some new stuff which was requested several times over the last years. We just can't do everything at one time. 

Past few months we did some really cool stuff, in QA also - but seems like no one is noticing that we made a huge upgrade in the way how App can show the QuickApps  - not in old-fashioned (slow and looking really bad) way but natively generating the views. I know that it is limited to the current editor right now but it is just a first step.

Also, I like evolution, not revolution... It is better to take steps and wait for the feedback than work for a year, release something, and then learn that "that is not what we wanted". 

I am here, on the forum, because I value the input of you all, and without you, the system would not be what it is right now.  
I am not doing this because someone pays me to do it, I am doing it because I want to, I am using very often my free time for this even if the other 10 hours of the day I am still inside the HA soup anyway.

I would really appreciate feedback, you can skip the good one (most of the people are not giving it anyway, that's normal for sure) - it can be bad.
The only thing I don't like is assuming the worst in everything.

[m.roszak 763]

18 hours ago, Sankotronic said:

 

Aha, I can then delete link to

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?

 

What is then left? Where I have to go from

Please login or register to see this link.

?

I guess then

Please login or register to see this link.

? That site is useful, but I failed to find complete manual on building QA except bits and pieces.

Do you actually refer to this:

Please login or register to see this link.

or

Please login or register to see this link.

and some links from this pages?

 

Hmmm... many links to many places, hard to maintain and hard to find and follow. Also, i didn't notice that any of this pages scattered around where updated recently?

 

 

 

I just want to clear the docs soon, not duplicate everything, and maintain it everywhere - it does not make sense from our side.
We got scheduled updating the manuals.fibaro.com - for sure it is outdated now but it is also for sure more recent than Dev docs. 

[Neo Andersson 230]

7 hours ago, m.roszak said:

So, I think you are now half-empty glass guys at the moment and it just makes me sad.

 

You took one part from this conversation and assumed the worst, I just showed some numbers, and called those "just numbers".
I also added that no matter what we are still working on improving everything, aligning the views, making it more user-friendly, and developing the system to be faster, easier, more easy to use, and giving more options for integrations. I just can't give you any timelines for changes in the editor because this is not an easy job to do and we already working on some new stuff which was requested several times over the last years. We just can't do everything at one time. 

Past few months we did some really cool stuff, in QA also - but seems like no one is noticing that we made a huge upgrade in the way how App can show the QuickApps  - not in old-fashioned (slow and looking really bad) way but natively generating the views. I know that it is limited to the current editor right now but it is just a first step.

Also, I like evolution, not revolution... It is better to take steps and wait for the feedback than work for a year, release something, and then learn that "that is not what we wanted". 

I am here, on the forum, because I value the input of you all, and without you, the system would not be what it is right now.  
I am not doing this because someone pays me to do it, I am doing it because I want to, I am using very often my free time for this even if the other 10 hours of the day I am still inside the HA soup anyway.

I would really appreciate feedback, you can skip the good one (most of the people are not giving it anyway, that's normal for sure) - it can be bad.
The only thing I don't like is assuming the worst in everything.

@m.roszak Michael, i think all other participants, firends, colleagues from this forum,agree with me, like @jgab @Sankotronic @SmartHomeEddy @Joep @cag014 , that there is not a single person here, who does not know, how precious your effort to help is. Not being people like you i bet, the majority of this community would dissapier. I also think, that all of us can clearly see, that there is some effort to improve QAs design, improve the system, i think all of us share this opinion. The question is, like jgab mentioned really precisly, where is this heading. What is the goal. Becuase it is more than clear, that these improvements will mainly help those who buy a HC lite, put 3 sensors and 3 light with 3 block scene, and thats it. This is called in Jgabs answer like " it seems to be positioned as a shrink-wrapped system for bulk-installation by certified "installers"".  In the head, he found the nail with this statement. Michel, your team should mostly listen people from this forum, listen to developers, and help them becuase i think these people here are the most important cogwheels in the system. You need to change your approach to powerusers, i am 100% sure, this is the first major step to do. And this should have been done a long long time ago. Anyway, again, your contribution, and help is more than appreciated. 

8 hours ago, m.roszak said:

Past few months we did some really cool stuff, in QA also - but seems like no one is noticing that we made a huge upgrade in the way how App can show the QuickApps

We definitelly noticed..but (and now i am talking from my experiences) nice QA, unchecked the view box, becuase i need to use HTML stuff, and a more complex QA is just unusable...I hope this will be fixed