I feel like guite often a new memeber gets a smartthings hub, set it up, and dont really know where to begin. Sometimes they can even get overwhelmed and give up. I was thinking that in order to help we could maybe make some how to guides and walkthroughs to help get new members on their feet.
Possible ideas could be:
What is the IDE and how to properly log into your hub location.
2.how to add codes to IDE either via copy and paste or from repo.
3.how to add a device depending on brand (iris, centralite, ge switch, xiaomi, etc)
4.basic code editing like how to change your tile colors or image.
Any other ideas?
1 Like
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
2
As @bamarayne mentioned, the community â created wiki is a really good place for stuff like this. You donât run into the problem we have in the forums where older Posts can no longer be edited, and anyone can add to the wiki.
There are also a couple of existing FAQs on some of the topics you listed:
JDRoberts pointed me in that direction too but its lacking a lot in info and guides at the moment so was hoping to get some more ideas on topics to create. Was also maybe hoping this would motivate some other people to make guides as well and help build a strong network of tutorials for people to use. I read a lot of people asking some in a sense beginner questions and was hoping to help cut those down and give people a place to go to find a how to with any product they buy or code they want to use.
BTW love that FAQ you created. Wish I saw that when I first got my setup. Hahaha
I feel like your deffinetly right about trying to use wiki instead though in order to not flood a topic. But it doesnât have a lot on there unfortunately. Having a specific how to section makes it easier for people to navigate and find what they want. Sometimes the forum can be cluttered and hard to find what your looking for I feel.
About two years ago when things were smaller there was a welcome section, and among other things new community members would introduce themselves there. So originally thatâs where the âshort intro to schedulingâ went and where the welcome FAQ wouldâve gone if that section still existed. There was also a staff member who wasnât particularly technical, but was from the marketing side, and handled forum duties. But then the entire forum got reorganized, that person got reassigned, everything was essentially made more formal, and we kind of lost the whole idea of a welcome category.
The FAQ subcategory in devices works well for the hardware/networking topics, but not really for the smartapp and scheduling ones.
Although I still think the wiki is the best place for how to guides, just because things change here so much. I often say âforums are for questions, wikis are for answers.â
Bummer to hear that. I keep reading on here how much things have changed over time and things like that where deffinetly the most missed. And thatâs understandable.
I guess I just have to wait now for access to the wiki so i can start adding to it.
Your awesome BTW for doing everything you have done and do. Deffinetly one of the people who help maintain this community and turned it into what it is. Making it truelly a community.
Thanks for the shout. There are lots of great people in the community. I just stand out because Iâm interested in stuff like network backbones that most people could care less about-- at least until they have a problem.
