Thought I would sit this conversation outside the Beta group chat… Not sure how many are currently outside of that group…? Come and join the cool kids if you are not part of it…
Anyway… back to the topic… I would be interested in peoples thoughts, including OLL’s thoughts, around how we are likely to share automations in a Core setup. I think for those of us currently living in a HE setup, many will have enjoyed Dominic’s hard work in providing developers (and users) the gift of Hubitat Package Manager (HPM) as a way to easily distribute Community developed drivers and apps. Obviously NR introduces it’s own options for sharing flows between users, but not necessarily the convenience (I expect) that something like HPM may provide.
Hmm … that might be possible. I’ll discuss with Markus later. We could put something up and link a repository to it. The thoughts will come together as we move forward. I’m interested in your ideas, for sure.
I can’t say I’ve looked at what is available in this space for NR already, but for me the things that HPM provides that I think are value-add, beyond posting a link to a shared or personal Git repository, are:
Relative ease of searching for apps / drivers that may interest a user. More could certainly be added to this aspect of HPM, but this is certainly a feature that would be nice to have in Core
Relative ease for developers to make their creations available for others to find and install, with little to no knowledge of Git and the process of installing code in HE
Options to have updates automatically installed and to be notified, but providing the user with the control as to whether this happens automatically or manually
Not that I have used it, but the ability to maintain a beta version and for users to opt-in for taking beta versions of apps or drivers
I am thinking that this kind of feature would be useful not only within NR but any other aspects of Core where developers can produce content that may be useful for others to include in their setup. Doesn’t have to be from day one, we didn’t have HPM for some time, so no rush, but creating aspects of the system with sharing of user-created content in mind may help get there quicker.
How do I get back in the Beta forums? Do I have to buy something? I just want to lurk a bit and see how things are progressing before I jump in financially.
The only things you won’t see is bug hunting. Beta testers are encouraged to discuss CORE openly in the lounge. It’ll start picking up very soon around here.
Is there an implicit Part B of your question, with respect to how CORE users might ultimately be able to share entire workflows and routines (not just the apps and drivers they are built upon)?
I’m thinking how WebCoRE kinda knocked it out of the park with its (private versus public versus snapshot) Piston-sharing approach.
Will I be able to export logic as JSON, for instance, to another user or conveniently post an encapsulated (optionally anonymized?) version of it in the Forum?
Yeah, I was looking to discuss how best to make anything we each produce available, so, to use the HE analogy, drivers and apps like many make available via HPM, but I was also interested if there were options for other things like Node RED. There has been some work on tools for developers that I still haven’t looked at, so that may hold some of the answers.
I would add when I started with HE, the ability to easily use and modify what other users created was a huge help for me. Plus sometimes the core team just may not have the time to develop something, and having other user be able to create and share what they have built really allows a platform to grow.
