Newbie Questions on Portal

Community Playground Getting Started & Initial Setup
#1

Hey. Got my Vera-Lite. Got a few questions that I can’t find answers to. Nothing major. This is all UI5. Note I’m a s/w developer so feel free to just give me the quick technical answer.

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Under Automation. If I start editing a scene, I’ll get a “Cancel/Confirm Changes”. What exactly is that doing? Is it saving ALL changes I’ve done to that scene? Or just the particular TAB I’m under. For example, perhaps I simply clicked Automation/Triggers/Edit one of the triggers. Alternatively, I could have clicked Automation/Scene/Edit a Scene/Trigger. It’s two different ways of getting to the same thing, but in both cases, what exactly is “Cancel/Confirm Changes” doing in those 2 cases.
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Now depending on the answer above, the next question if the RED “Save” button. That will illuminate after I’ve done a change (such as above). What exactly is that doing? Were the changes above only stored in the browser (assuming some Java crap is running)? So when the RED “Save” is pressed, it’s now actually saving the data to the Vera-Lite controller? I assume that’s the case. But I also assume it’s dumping something to “cp.mios.com” as well.
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If I press “Logout” and then later change something and press “Save”, it seems to log back in and save stuff. Does that imply my user id/pwd is cached in the web portal somewhere? I assume Java (and or JS).
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In the very TOP bar of the web portal there are 2 up/down arrows. What are those for? Can I put something up in that panel and use those to scroll?
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Whenever I go to cp.mios.com now, it just immediately forwards to the local IP address of the Vera. I would have thought I would have to log in first and then it forwards. Just curious what exactly is going on there. I even logged out (on the web portal) and retried it and it still worked. Seems odd. So what exactly does “Logout” mean/do? It doesn’t seem to serve any purpose. I assume the reverse SSH tunnel is always up so hitting cp.mios.com just forwards based on what? Hmm. I’m a bit confused here. Cookies?
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#2

  1. You are saving changes to that tab in browser memory.

  2. The red Save button writes all browser cached configuration changes to Vera’s NVRAM and reloads the luup engine. It will also reconfigure any affected Z-Wave devices, if needed.

  3. It is not logging back into cp.mios.com. It is saving to Vera locally(LAN), which does not require authentication.

  4. That area of the screen displays messages about what Vera is currently doing, reloading, saving, configuring, healing… If there are multiple lines the arrows allow you to scroll. The information in that window is not permanent and expires after a short while.

  5. Logout logs you out of cp.mios.com There is no local authentication for Vera. If you access or are redirected to Vera while on your LAN there is no login or authentication.

#3

Thanks Z-Waver for the reply. Just a few comments.

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Under Automation if you start doing any changes (triggers/schedules), the “Cancel/Confirm Changes” seems to save “everything” under the Automation tab (did some testing). You can move between sub tabs (triggers schedules) and later press “Cancel/Confirm Changes” to save ALL of the Automation items. That’s great. The only reason it threw me off was because it puts the “Cancel/Confirm Changes” button in the brown bar which more aligns with the immediate data being modified.

But I don’t no…now I’m not so sure really. When I change anything under Automation, the upper Brown Bar says “Edit Scene No 2”. So I’m guessing the “Cancel/Confirm Changes” is to save anything changed in the Scene.

No big deal. I was just trying to figure out WHEN I need to press it. After each page I change, or later when I’ve changed all the automation data. The latter I think.
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Regarding the Logout button. So really if your on the LAN talking to the Vera, the Login/Logout does nothing? Is that correct?
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What about “Reload”. I had some pending changes under Automation (“Cancel/Confirm Changes” was up). So for a test, I pressed “Reload”. I assume this reloads the data FROM the Vera into the browser. Is that correct? Also, I would have expected the “Cancel/Confirm Changes” button to be taken down after reload, but it remained. So I guess it gets down to what does Reload do? What would have happened if I pressed “Confirm Changes” after a reload?
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Sorry for the basic questions…just trying to understand how the portal works…thanks.

#4
  1. When you complete changes to a trigger or schedule(I would suggest that you do this only form within a scene) you can abandon the changes with Cancel or you can confirm(not save) your changes and move to other configuration matters. When you are all done, you press Save to save/commit all changes to Vera and reload the Vera config.

Nothing gets saved to Vera until you press Save.

  1. As previously stated, the Login/Logout options pertain to the cp.mios.com portal and do not have an impact on the local Vera access, as you have seen for yourself.

  2. Reload, in the upper right fo your Vera GUI, has nothing to do with your browser. It triggers a reload/restart the Vera LUA engine and Vera’s saved configuration. I almost never use this button/link.

Bonus: If you make changes to your configuration but do not press Save and then reload/refresh your browser(F5), all changes are discarded. Some plugins might be exceptions to this.