Organizing/ structuring rule sets and rules

[LibraSun]

May I also just add that I appreciate how a Reaction can "Stop" itself? Could be a powerful debugging tool when needed.

[LibraSun]

LEARNED SOMETHING TODAY

1. You can click-and-drag Rules to reorganize them in Rulesets. Who knew?
2. You cannot, however, click-to-highlight the Rule ID of an expanded rule, in order to copy that text.
3. Setting an Expression := away is entirely different from := "away". The first evaluates to (null) if no such named Global exists; the second evaluates to the string "away".

#2 would be hugely helpful for times when you need to troubleshoot the Reactor.log. (I understand CSS and HTML, but don't know the correct term for "object not swipable" -- is this a side-effect of, say, a very high z-index on that block element?).

As for #3, I foolishly thought MSR's expression parser, lexpjs, was meant to typecast unknown objects (away ► "away") but that was a n00b miscalculation.

[toggledbits]

Looks like #2 is a limitation of "sortable" objects in jQuery UI. The sortable takes over all clicks and drags. I'll keep poking for workarounds, but don't get your hopes up.

[LibraSun]

re: #2 it might then be helpful to replicate the Rule ID within the Edit view of each Rule?

[toggledbits]

@librasun said in Preview of Multi-System Reactor:

You can click-and-drag Rules to reorganize them in Rulesets. Who knew?

You can do the same with Rule Sets... organize them in any order you wish.

[toggledbits]

@librasun said in Preview of Multi-System Reactor:

re: #2 it might then be helpful to replicate the Rule ID within the Edit view of each Rule?

Why do you need the rule ID?

[LibraSun]

Armed with the unique Rule ID, one can (somewhat more) quickly do a "FIND" in Notepad while looking at REACTOR.LOG

[toggledbits]

Got it. Name is also logged, although not as frequently in the debug levels.

It looks like the only way I can avoid the complete takeover of mousedown by the draggable/sortable is to use a drag handle, e.g. an icon on which you click and drag to move the row. That's done elsewhere, so it would be consistent. I can see other reasons in future to want to interact with the detail card, so I'm leaning towards it right now.

[LibraSun]

FEATURE REQUEST(?)

Place a warning in Global Expressions area that "These are not to be used as stand-alone Triggers. Will not be evaluated unless called from another resource (e.g. Rule-based expressions)."

And if this assumption is accurate (I could be misinterpreting? Rules just didn't seem to fire unless they have another in-house Trigger or local copy of said Variable), then also warn in Rules for which there is only a Global Expression and nothing else Trigger'ing it.

[LibraSun]

MSR USAGE QUESTION

Is there a (straightforward) way to do Dev# substitution into the new way (e.g. getEntity( "vera>device_216" ).attributes.battery_power.level) that attribute values get referenced in MSR?
Back on Reactor for Vera, I used to iterate over getstate( DeviceNum, "urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:HaDevice1", "BatteryLevel" ) to derive the current battery levels on various devices. And I'd somewhat hate to have to hard-code or write out all of them by hand if I don't have to in MSR.

[Matteburk]

@toggledbits
Could you share a rule for one Room so we can see how it could look like with multipel reactions that has different conditions.
I Don’t really understand how multipel reactions on diffrent conditions should look like. In Reactor it was easy to understand but in msr i Don’t get it..

I really Wanja make more complicated automations but Iam stuck with one reaction...
/ Mattias

[Tarkus]

@matteburk Did you do an import of your Vera reactor sensors? It is different in MSR but I compared the MSR imported rules vs Vera reactors and it helped me figure out what was going on.

[toggledbits]

There are no reactions on groups in MSR. Reactor for Vera allowed you to create activities (its equivalent to reactions) on any group in your ReactorSensor.

So, if you are creating a rule with subgroups in MSR, and you decide that the subgroup needs to perform some actions, you have export that subgroup to a Rule of its own. There is a button for that. If you click that button on a group (to the right of the group name), it will export the group to a Rule, and replace the group with a "Rule" condition for the new rule so the logic remains intact in the current rule.

[Matteburk]

@toggledbits@toggledbits Ok Then I understand but I cant find the button... I have Button,rename and collapse and then som shaded row...
Skärmavbild 2021-03-17 kl. 18.58.28.png

[toggledbits]

Are you on 21075? Version number in the upper-right corner.

[Matteburk]

@tarkus I dont use reactor anymore on my Vera Plus... I Jumped the ship a year ago to hubitat..

[Matteburk]

@toggledbits yes... Sorry... will update asap My bad!

[Matteburk]

@toggledbits On 21075 now and it works (button found) Thanx! Lets rock on!

[LibraSun]

FEATURE REQUEST

Consider Including CallMeBot among the Notification classes, with the following parameters available for editing in notification.yaml:

base_url=http://api2.callmebot.com/start.php
source=vera
user=@<user_name>
text=<default_msg>
lang=en-US-Standard-C
rpt=2"

Of course, the text parameter can be overridden in Reactions and probably should not have a default setting come to think of it. IIRC, usernames correspond to the user's Telegram account nickname.

[LibraSun]

Just finished porting ALL of my Reactor recipes over to MSR Rules, and feel very accomplished for having done so. Only took me about a week, which included a TON of A/B testing.

With very few exceptions, my workflows are working swiftly and as expected. Any obvious glitches I've reported using Bug Tracker.
And the remaining one or two head scratchers (notably me pressing a button on my NodOn Soft Remote and Vera frustratingly ignoring me!) deserve deeper exploration before I submit a trouble ticket.

The MSR learning curve has been refreshingly low, and I suspect it will be even for staunch PLEG users as well.