Organizing/ structuring rule sets and rules

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22274

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• HubitatController: Fix too-aggressive caching of entities that makes entity names too "sticky" when device name or label is changed on hub. Note that a particularity of Hubitat, unlike most other hubs currently supported, requires a soft restart of either the controller instance (using sys_system.restart on the HubitatController's system entity) or a restart of Reactor to "see" the rename (Hubitat does not send an event when a device is renamed, so Reactor can't know).
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2022.9.7

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22291

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• HubitatController: Breaking change: Devices that use HE's PressureMeasurement capability will now report pressure on pressure_sensor.value rather than the generic value_sensor.value. I'm not sure this is widely used if at all, so I chose to just make the breaking change rather than deprecate and hold on to the old behavior for months.
• PR 0000283: Reactions Editor: allow drag-drop between groups. This still has some minor issues, but these are due to limitations/defects in jquery-ui (so we'll have to live with them for now).
• PR 0000334: Docs, fix an error in the example expression for metadata.
• HubitatController: Implement polling as a replacement for Hubitat's Z-Wave Poller app, which is widely reported to not work well (the author's own experience corroborates these reports). Polling is only needed for legacy Z-Wave devices that do not support instant status or some equivalent (hail, etc.) that Hubitat understands. [docs]
• DynamicGroupController: the include_entity and exclude_entity selectors now can use a regular expression to match entity canonical IDs. [docs]
• InfluxFeed: New advanced attribute handling key skip_null to suppress export of null measurement values; [docs]
• Fix a sync issue in the UI when deleting entities that previously required a hard refresh of the browser.
• UI: Fixed alignment of icons and buttons for large items in the Alerts widget (Status page).
• Documentation: Updated documentation on building Controllers, and provided new example code (WhiteBITController).
• HassController: Tighten capabilities for voltage, current, energy, power, and humidity sensor types. If you have automations using temperature or humidity sensors in Hass, please make sure your conditions use the temperature_sensor.value or humidity_sensor.value attributes, and not the generic value_sensor.value attribute -- this generic attribute is now deprecated and will be removed from a future release.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2022.10.4

MQTTController build 22291

NOTE: This version requires Reactor version 22291 or higher.

• Add optional default value in topic substitutions. That is, the substitution string %flavor:chocolate% would insert the word chocolate if flavor was not defined in the entity configuration.
• Template owntracks_in_region adds a user field that can be set if your Owntracks needs it. The Owntracks topic is /owntracks/user/deviceid, so the user field should be set in your entity configuration (with topic and regionName to whatever is in that user portion of the topic (e.g. if your Owntracks publishes owntracks/fred/fredsphone then topic should be set to fredsphone and user should be set to fred).
• Code cleanup and sync with Controller base class updates.

ZWaveJSController build 22291

NOTE: This version requires Reactor version 22291 or higher.

• Code cleanup and sync with Controller base class updates.

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22293

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• PR 0000337: Condition with "sustained for" less than X seconds malfunctions (triggers immediately).
• PR 0000336: Fix group error indication not clearing when creating new group in a reaction (global or rule-based).
• Fix an error in the translation string for "sustained for" options when the "less than X seconds" form is used (was showing incorrectly in rule status view human-readable form).
• VirtualEntityController: scheduling of HTTP requests can now be done at specific times via the at setting for the request (an alternative to interval). [docs]
• VirtualEntityController: the quiet_failure flag now accepts either a boolean value or integer; if boolean true, notifications are never sent for failed HTTP requests. If numeric, a notification is sent only after that number of requests has failed. [docs]

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22302

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• UI/Status: Running Reactions widget now has "stop" button to terminate a running reaction (caveat operator).
• UI/Status: Tighten the display up a bit (remove excess whitespace).
• UI/Status: Fix alerts list that can overflow its container horizontally, causing a confusing display with multiple scoll bars.
• UI/Rule Editor: An notice/badge is now shown for collapsed sections that are not empty (i.e. when content is hidden).
• Fix condition operator "is EMPTY" (and its negated partner) on array type operand (only) was incorrectly reporting not empty in some circumstances.
• Additional UI embellishments for condition (triggers/constraints) and action (reactions) drag-drop. Still some limitations/inconsistencies/bugs in jquery-ui (which provides the drag/drop/sort implementation). If you can't get your object exactly where you want it, drop it close (i.e. into the group you want it in), then drag it again to its final position within the group.
• Action logging from all controllers now uses INFO level logging rather than forced logging (this is mostly a help to me because I separately log warning and higher priority in my test and home configurations so I can more clearly see errors -- it removes noise from that).
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2022.10.5

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22305

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• Engine: fix bug that could cause expressions having array or object results to not detect change reliably.
• UI/Rules/Reactions: the changes operator should not be available in constraints (changes is an event, and constraints are static, not event-driven).
• UI/Rules Editor: enforce minimum size for condition type menu (tidier layout).
• UI/Reaction Editor: improve field layout, prevent fields from pushing controls out of container, enforce minimum size for action type menu (tidier layout).

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22308

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• PR 0000343: Fix missing fields for notification action (Pushover title reported; 22305 injection).
• PR 0000342: Documentation fix, error in example code for if expressions in Expressions doc.
• PR 0000341: Ease entity ID restriction (for users with international characters in entity IDs).
• PR 0000340: Localization of "upgrade available" alert message.
• PR 0000339: push()/unshift() functions not working as expected (not a lexp issue, it's a last-value storage/comparison problem when value is object type).
• PR 0000338: Version/license/meta info for extensions is now displayed on the About page.

[toggledbits]

Reactor 22328

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• The baseurl config key/value is no longer required. It is used only in exceptional circumstances. It is now commented out in default configurations (dist-config/reactor.yaml), and setting it is no longer required as an installation step. Users configuring their systems to use HTTPS access to the Reactor UI should, instead of using baseurl: https://..., set use_tls: true in the reactor section of their configuration.
• Improve messages in Run Reaction actions when there is an error starting the reaction.
• DynamicGroupController: make sure change in group name in configuration is always applied at startup.
• HassController: implementation for device_tracker service to location capability.
• HassController: since HA appears to provide conversion, enable all color modes if any is supported.
• HassController: Add support for new xy_color capability.
• HassController: Allow YAML form service data in call_service actions. The service data can now be formatted as YAML or JSON. The former is the default unless { is the first character in the field, to preserve compatibility with existing actions using JSON data.
• Add xy_color system capability.
• Fix a startup issue on Windows.
• PR 0000345: Fix expression doc example for each statement
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2022.11.4

ZWaveJSController 22323

NOTE: This version requires Reactor build 22314 or higher.

• Allow zwave_device.set_config parameter to be either string (property name) or number (property/configuration parameter ID). This should improve usability for this action.
• Store property ID in metadata for x_zwave_values attributes.
• Improve "first guess" device support for many devices when Z-Wave JS is still running interviews and Reactor comes up (i.e. when data from Z-Wave JS about devices is incomplete).
• Improve device support for multiple Fibaro, Aeotec, Everspring devices.
• Improve manufacturer/device support for Remotec, Poly-Control, Danalock, Zipato, Nortek, NEO, Minoston (EVA Logik).

MQTTController 33326

NOTE: This version requires Reactor build 22306 or higher.

• Allow templates to be stored in individual files in a config/mqtt_templates subdirectory. This should improve users' configuration management for community-contributed templates.
• Additional error checking in install script.
• Implement entity deadmarking like other controllers.
• Improve entity initialization/resilience to isolated configuration problems.
• Incorporate some device template fixes from @therealdb (with gratitude for his ongoing contributions).
• Support for deterministic updating of attributes on a topic by using a new/alternate array-based configuration syntax. [docs]
• Support for requires key in templates to facilitate user-feedback when a template is used but a configuration value required by the template it not provided by the user.

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22337

ALL USERS -- IMPORTANT: If you are upgrading from any version earlier than 22256, please read the advisories and prerequisites for that build, below.

• Rules UI: Improved detection in UI (or more correctly, notification from core to UI) of "trouble" on rules.
• HassController: reconfigure entities on HA version change; support for person, weather, number, button, sun.
• HTTPAPI: API requests are now logged by default.
• HTTPAPI: A malformed monitored_entities configuration will no longer prevent the perform API request from completing.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2022.11.5

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 22349

NOTE: If you get missing entity errors from your rules when you first start this version, don't panic. Just wait a few seconds and then restart Reactor; it should then start clean.

IMPORTANT: The bare-metal distributions no longer include package dependencies pre-installed. It is therefore critical that you install/update dependencies every time you upgrade by running npm run deps in the Reactor install directory (for Linux users; Windows users please refer to the installation documentation. This advisory does not apply to docker-based installs — Reactor docker images always include package dependencies pre-installed.

• Expressions: isNaN() now returns false when passed null. This is now different from JavaScript, where parseFloat(null)/parseInt(null) return NaN, but isNaN(null) (oddly, IMO) returns true.
• Fix an error in Group class implementation that was causing spurious errors from DynamicGroupController after a member entity was deleted or purged.
• VeraController: Improve detection of UV sensor child devices registered as GenericSensor device type and having LightSensor1/CurrentLevel state variable when LightSensor1 isn't even a declared service for the type (i.e. a mess). This applies specifically to Aeotec Multi-Sensor 6 devices on 7.32beta4, but may apply to other devices/firmware.
• EzloController: Sound sensors are now handled with Reactor value_sensor capability.
• EzloController: Guard against missing item enumerated in data for a device (data inconsistency in Ezlo API's returned device data).
• UI Entities List: UI now stores the last 10 actions and their parameters, and restores the parameters when an action is repeated.
• UI Entities List: Action parameter default values for certain types are now provided correctly (some types would come up blank even though a non-blank default was provided in the parameter definition).
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2022.12.6
• i18n: Improve messages for Rules/Predicates when dependent objects are missing.
• Improvements from the 22343 silent release (see below).

MQTTController build 22350

• Improve handling of x_mqtt_device.online attribute for templates that have custom LWT event.

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23010

• Stop Reaction action now allows you to stop the current/running reaction. This is intended to be used in constrained groups, where a match to the constraints may stop the reaction to prevent it from doing anything else.
• New ev_charger system capability.
• Reaction Editor: Fix incorrect storage type for boolean arguments affecting some controllers.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.1.2

MQTTController build 23010

• Fix spurious message when stopping MQTTController instance.

ZWaveJSController build 23011

• Fix a possible runtime error during node configuration if the target node isn't yet fully ready.
• Support for iblinds V3.

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23028

• UI/Rules Editor: Collapsed sections now change the color of the "hidden content" badge -- red if the hidden content contains an error that needs to be corrected before save, green if it contains modified conditions or actions, and info blue (as before) if no errors and unmodified. No badge is shown if the section is empty (as before). The badge icon has been changed to a crossed eye.
• Docs: Add Portainer installation instructions: https://reactor.toggledbits.com/docs/Installation-docker-portainer/
• EzloController: If there are too many consecutive timeouts on requests to the hub, recycle the hub connection.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.1.7

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23049

• Rule and Reaction Editors: Use fixed "helper" for drag/drop to circumvent limitations in jQuery-UI causing odd restrictions and side-effects when dragging large objects (like HTTP Request actions). It's not as cool-looking, but function over form is required here.
• Docs: Provide installation link for community-supplied HassOS add-on; thank you to mrw298 for this.
• HubitatController: Do not automatically select the Hub Information device for health probes; the new Hub Information v3 operates differently from previous versions and now is longer usable for health probes. A device will be chosen at random unless the probe_device config is set. [docs]
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.2.5

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23063

• Reaction Editor (UI): restore wide fields in HTTP Request action; injection from changes in 23049.
• Reaction Editor (UI): fix detection of substitution in some cases that would cause single-action "try" button to not be disabled when a substitution was in the action's parameters (substitution isn't performed on single-action try).
• Entities Page: Action dialog now warns that substitution isn't performed in that tool (launching an action from entity detail panel).
• HassController: support for humidifier/dehumidifier (domain/service and device class, respectively).
• VirtualEntityController: Fix an error in config check that was not allowing underscore (_) in entity IDs.
• VirtualEntityController: Enforce x_virtualentity.set_attribute parameters more aggressively (better error message when not provided).
• VirtualEntityController: Fix an error in x_virtualentity.set_attribute that would cause the HTTP API to not give a response when the action completed.
• I18n: Rework the loading of locale settings files, their relation to the node or browser locale, and the configurable overrides. Reactor will now use the requested locale (host config, browser config/URL, Reactor config) even if a translation file is not available for it. This places the burden on JS' native Intl, which is ample, and reduces some complexity in Reactor's model.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.3.1

ZWaveJSController build 23063

• Command class Sound Switch now maps to chime capability (Aeotec Siren 6, others)
• Support multi-step action implementations (e.g. chime.play needs to set two values sequentially (volume then sound).

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23078

• Fix loading of local capabilities definitions broken in a previous build.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.3.5

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23114

• Conditions: add is NOT TRUE and is NOT FALSE operators. The is NOT TRUE operator (for example) is unlike the is FALSE operator in that, if the tested value is null, the is NOT TRUE operator result would be true, while the is FALSE operator result would be false. This distinction facilitates some tests where it may be desirable to handle null as equivalent to either true or false without having to provide an additional, separate is NULL condition (and possibly an enclosing OR group).
• DynamicGroupController: document group actions; this makes it an official feature (was experimental).
• Engine/Rule: Clean up a misspelled method name.
• InfluxFeed docs: update supported and recommended versions. [doc]
• HubitatController: Tweak reconnect timing decay (allow for longer decay when hub cannot be contacted for an extended period).
• Reactions: Clarify what "Disabled" means in the constraints of a Group action (incl. Repeat...While) of a reaction. It does not disable the actions in the group. The disable flag applies to the constraint conditions only, having the same effect as it would on rule-based triggers and constraints (i.e. it becomes as if the constraint conditions do not exist). [docs] and [docs]
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.4.6

[toggledbits]

MQTTController 23135

• In action payload, force conversion of all data types to string for "raw" output, rather than assuming result of expression is a string (although docs say to do that, it's just too easy to omit, and too easy to change it so the requirement is moot).
• Add parameter: name value form to action payload definition to draw payload value from the named parameter without the need to use an expression (this follows the implementation of action definitions in other Controller instances as well). That is, you can specify, for example, parameter: level instead of using expr: parameters.level (assuming the parameter value requires no scaling or other modifications to be compatible with the device). [docs]

[toggledbits]

Reactor Build 23171

NOTE: This build includes fixes made in a prior silent release (where the change(s) affected only one user).

DEPRECATION NOTICE: Support for versions of Home Assistant prior to 2022.5.3 will be removed on the next build. These older versions may continue to operate successfully with HassController going forward, but I will not address/fix issues for them.

• PR 0000356: Fix an issue where a rule with multiple sunrise/sunset conditions using the between operator chooses the first condition's before/after constraints rather than its own (i.e. it was choosing the control states from the first row rather than the current row).
• SystemController: the deprecated suninfo.sun_angle attribute is now removed (its replacement is suninfo.elevation).
• HubitatController: Hub variables can now be set up to 1024 characters with hub firmware 2.3.5.135 and above; for earlier firmware, the limit is 255 characters. The length limit is enforced by the hub, not HubitatController.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.6.2

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23196 (latest and stable branches)

NOTICE: As announced in the release note for the previous build (23171), Home Assistant versions earlier than 2022.5.3 are no longer supported.

• Introduce a maximum delay in the write-back of certain storage containers (e.g. that used for expressions).
• Docs: fix an error in an example on the How-To: Expressions with Entities page.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.7.2

[toggledbits]

Reactor build 23218

• Improve the initialization of new global variables so they don't show "not yet evaluated" until a non-null value is set (null is a valid evaluation result and should remove the "not yet").
• Expressions: improve the display of non-printing characters in the expression editor's "current value" display (they now display as Unicode escape sequences).
• i18n: Fix init of localized weekday names when most recent Sunday occurs in prior month (caused, for example, incorrect weekday checkbox labels in Weekday conditions; cosmetic only, no operational effect).
• SystemController: for Reactor update, include update branch, version, and commit as attributes on system entity.
• Entities page: New Copy Attributes button in entity detail copies all attribute values to the clipboard.
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.8.0

[toggledbits]

Reactor Build 23242

• Rules Editor: Fixed an issue where a condition option change to the duration operator with no change to duration value may not be saved.
• HassController: Add mapping for proximity domain (to value_sensor).
• HassController: Bless Hass to 2023.8.2