Tips & Tricks

yml files

Entry sharing

If the values should be reused yml features anchors with & which then can be referenced with *. This allows to reuse the defined structures:

my_key_value_pairs:  &my_kv  # <-- this creates the anchor node with the name my_kv
  4: 99     # Light Threshold
  5: 8      # Operation Mode
  7: 20     # Customer Function

value_1: *my_kv  # <-- '*my_kv' references the anchor node my_kv
value_2: *my_kv

value_3:
  <<: *my_kv    # <-- '<<: *my_kv' references and inserts the content (!) of the anchor node my_kv
  4: 80         #                  and then overwrites parameter 4

openHAB

autoupdate

If external devices are capable of reporting their state (e.g. Z-Wave) it is always advised to use disable autoupdate for these items. This prevents openhab from guessing the item state based on the command and forces it to use the actual reported value. If in doubt if the device supports reporting their state watch the state after sending a command with autoupdate off. If the state changes autoupdate can remain off.

In the *.items file autoupdate can be disabled by adding the following statement in the metadata field.

` Number  MyItem    { channel = "zwave:my_zwave_link", autoupdate="false" } `

It’s also possible with textual thing configuration to add it as metadata.