How to create a custom dashboard widget?

Apps & Remote Access Unmaintained
1

How can we create a custom dashboard widget?

The current widgets are very generic and waste a lot of space and have redundant graphics.
Example: One widget has an on/off switch + a light bulb + a dimmer slider. Bulb and on/off switch are redundant… and look bad/cluttered

I’d also like to add specific graphics that are specific to the device so the image differentiates without needing to read the text.

thx for the help

2

If you hold your finger over the widget for a few seconds, the configuration panel will come up. From there, you can change icons, put in background images (even ones you created), add/edit/remove action text, etc.

As for dashboards themselves, unfortunately there isn’t a way to customize the layouts, but they give you a large number to choose from - lots of choice in size and layout.

On interesting thing to note… when you chance icons… you’ll see some are dynamic. Also, there is a “blank” spot about halfway down the page that represents NO ICON… it doesn’t say this, but if you select it, the icon will disappear. Useful if you want to just use a background image to indicate what device or scene you are using.

3

tomgru, thanks for the reply… the problem is that only changes one of the images… you still have the reduntant gfx there. See my screenshot that shows them, circled in red – these appear even if you chose ‘blank’ for Custom Icon.

4

Ah… just tried it and you are right… this is what happens if you have a device selected in your panel. I guess the only way you could completely get rid of all the icon attributes would be to use scenes instead. Unfortunately, this would not give you both on and off for the same panel.

What I do for multiple scenes for example is to do just that for ON. So for example… I may have 3 panels created for various ON scenes in the same room… let’s say family room. For each of these, I use a custom background image (photo) of the room that shows what it looks like, plus ‘action’ text that says what happens when you select the scene. Like:

Panel one: Family room - NORMAL (picture of all lamps on in room)
Panel two: Family room - MORNING (picture of only two lamps on, dim)
Panel three: Family room - MOVIE (picture of most lights off, very dim)

Then I actually use the composite device widget in a 4th panel that has all the lamps in it. I use this to turn everything off, although I could have also just created an off scene and done the same things as above.