SmartTiles Dashboard v5.6.1: New features (SHM), Bug Fixes, Diagnostics - Dec 11, 2015

###Rollout Status: COMPLETE! Mon 2015-12-13 0630h UTC

  • Completed to all UK child dashboards
  • Completed to all US child dashboards
  • Completed to original [0] “singleton” dashboards.

Updates are automatic – there is no need to uninstall or reinstall or reconfigure. But … If you wish to check your version number; see the top of the SmartApp Preferences / Configuration screen for each child.

Stay tuned to this Topic for more details…

And … for installation and more news, visit: http://SmartTiles.click

Brief Release Notes:

  • The SmartApp is installed with the new parent/child functionality. You install “SmartThings (Connect)”, which when you open to configure, gives you the ability to add/configure up to five (5) distinct dashboards (per Location on your SmartThings Account). You heard right: We’ve added multiple dashboard support. You now get up to 5 Dashboards for the price of, well, none, actually – SmartTiles V5 is still free / donationware.

  • :warning: Warning: If you uninstall SmartThings (Connect) (the parent SmartApp), all its children will be destroyed and uninstalled as well. You can uninstall individual SmartTiles children only if you are in the configuration page for that child dashboard!

Features:

  • Internal security updated per SmartThings documented functions for Access Token handling.

  • Removed SMS send URL option (SMS isn’t sufficiently secure).

  • Under “More Tiles” you can activate a Smart Home Monitor/SHM Tile (similar to Mode Tile).

  • SMV (Stop Motion Video) Refresh Rate setting added under Preferences Page.

  • Log Level setting (for diagnostic output to IDE Live Logging US or UK added under “Preferences” (defaults to “Error” only).

  • Added “sballoz” Theme (courtesy of @sballoz).

  • Tile order can now be edited outside of the SmartTiles “SmartApp configuration pages” by going to URL: https://graph.api.smartthings.com/api/smartapps/installations/<your_SmartTiles_AppID_from_the_Dashboard_URL>/list

  • Custrom CSS can now be edited outside of the SmartTiles “SmartApp configuration pages” by going to URL: https://graph.api.smartthings.com/api/smartapps/installations/<your_SmartTiles_AppID_from_the_Dashboard_URL>/css

Fixes:

  • Video Tiles can now be deleted/hidden by putting anything in URL that doesn’t start withhttp”. This now permit hiding (essentially deleting) an unused Video Tile just by masking its URL (even temporarily); e.g., “xhttp://my.videofeed.com/video.cgi

  • Fixed fatal error that occurs if an Account/Location has invalid or missing Routines list.



@625alex and I are grateful for all your continued support! Please keep in mind our current "User Support Policy" as questions come up about this release. Seeing multiple reports here in the Forum will help identify any bugs we might not catch in advance:


For additional info; reference the SmartTiles v5.5 Topic & others…

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Thanks for the updates! Keeps getting better and better. I woke up this morning to find that my video feed tile was gone entirely from my dashboard. After checking on the forums and seeing this post I looked at my setup.

For the URL it looks like my phone put an uppercase h at the start of the URL during setup. So it was showing as Http instead of http. I’m guessing your logic is case sensitive because as soon as I made it all lowercase the feed showed back up.

Just posting this in case anyone else has a similar issue this morning.

Thanks again!

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Hiya! Just to let you know I’m having the same issue with the Video stream tile, have to keep refreshing the page for it to finally show up, then after the next refresh its gone.

Secondly I enabled the SHM tile, and then disabled it as I had to uninstall the SHM from ST. However it randomly appears and disappears the same as the Video stream tile (even with the slider set to off).

EDIT: Yeah sorry, this version appears to be very buggy, I keep losing my Video feed and the SHM tile randomly appears and vanishes again. Its really really annoying :frowning:

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This is noted and a fixed. Will be pushing an update shortly.

It appears we are again experiencing a severe case of inconsistent data across servers. We had a period of that in September - October but then eventually the cloud sorted itself out.

This is due to changes in app preferences not propagating through the different cloud servers. There is no known remedy for this, patience is the key.

Data inconsistency may manifest itself as random flipping between different themes, tile order temporarily reverting to a previous state, and general forgetfulness of app preferences.

@jody.albritton, I would like to bring this to your attention in light of our recent conversation…

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That makes a lot of sense, shame that it cant be resolved. Will await the close to sort itself out :smile:

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You guys ROCK! :smiley: Samsung should pay you a lot of money for enhancing their product so much. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Thanks for the compliments, Whipp! All the gratitude is very encouraging to @625alex and myself.

As for payment(s) … well, we’re still hoping SmartThings provides a simple “SmartApp Store” someday – heck … the SmartApp library is called “Marketplace”, after all, not just “Library” or “Collection” of stuff! We are working on ensuring future versions of SmartTiles will be super solid, perform faster, extra responsive, and flexible to popular user feature requests. All stuff that we feel will be worth a reasonable charge of some amount.

But we’d much rather work on high quality super functional code and providing excellent customer support than be distracted building a payment system and dealing with marketing expenses. Growing the user base reach outside of the Community would require substantial effort.

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I echo that comment, without this, I probably would not have bought Smart Things in the UK, so thanks for all the hard work

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+1 from me. I would not be expanding my SmartThings setup if not for this. I will be donating shortly. Keep up the great job. And Thank You!

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Anyone who uses this dashboard as part of their setup should consider a donation equal to the amount you generally spend on a new device. This is especially true for those who rely on SmartTiles as part of their setup. If it wasn’t for developers like this SmartThings would not be near as flexible or as cool as it is today.

Really any developer that you use their works you should consider donating to. Think of it like this. Most of us spend hundreds and many thousands of dollars on our builds. You won’t find anyplace that you can go and grab free hardware and no vendor provides try it and donate if you want. Additionally, most developers have full time other jobs, this means when they are working on code, it’s in their personal time.

Lastly, when was the last time you got something for free and then got free support, free updates, free enhancement and free bug fixes?

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I encourage you, and anyone who hasn’t already done so, to make a donation. The link is right here: Donate :slight_smile:

@625alex does a great deal to make up for some of SmartThings lower priority deficiencies and appears to devote a LOT of time and attention to putting out and maintaining a high quality product.

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Great work!!! I was waiting for the Smart Home integration.

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@mattjfrank @Stroh thanks for reminding everyone to support all of their favorite developers, as I do. Most code in this community is shared as freeware developed out of their own needs. Contributions (money) keep the devs encouraged to continue to support and expand functionality for users who don’t code or don’t have the time, don’t be a leech.

It seems my tongue in cheek comment was misunderstood since your replies were directed to me. It was meant to poke Samsung to value this fine community of developers they have! Without them ST would not serve the needs of most people and they would have nothing. Heck, I can not even schedule my thermostat without community code (yes, I paid for it). What would they do if everyone pulled their code and went somewhere else? Hubs are cheap!

ST help could come in many ways, such as better communications, advanced release notes, stability and all the other stuff people are griping about.

Again, thank you @tgauchat @625alex and any others involved for doing something that ST could not do, giving easy cross platform browser control to PCs, tablets and other connected devices! I’m sure this has made peace in many family households.

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Thank you so much for this incredible project!

Sorry to ask this here, but I couldn’t find an answer elsewhere: Is there any way to resize individual tiles?

Currently not. Everything is build on a square grid system, so only a few special Tiles have individual size configuration (clock, video), just a multiple of the grid size.

There are some folks very clever with the add-on CSS option; I don’t even pretend to know what may or may not be possible in that regard as a interim solution. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone attempt to resize individual Tiles with CSS alone; but check out the Topic, post, and maybe see if there are ideas… Dashboard Theming (Custom CSS) and Mounting Hardware Ideas

Thanks so much for the quick response, I’ll check that out! I know it was possible using dashing, but that was pretty far over my head.

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the app. I hope my humble donation keeps you guys going.

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Strange. There are community contributors that SELL their code outright.

Donations not okay, selling okay? Guess I don’t know all the policies.

There aren’t any official policies yet … we’re talking about it. The Community is largely self-monitored (not to discount the work that Tim, etc., do here!); but that means anyone can flag a post as abusive or spam, etc… So I don’t know if there’s been a run of flags for any particular reason or if I’ve crossed the invisible line.

I completely empathize that we don’t want to have the Forum become too commercial, and certainly not “spammed”; but SmartTiles has no other options for exposure besides here and word-of-mouth (and a few social media followers). So I can’t afford to err on the side of shyness.

Someday when there’s a “paid Marketplace”, then I presume there will be reciprocal advertising and promotional agreements in place. That’s where we know several Community developed SmartApps and Device Type Handlers belong. Yet … can’t hold breath.

I definitely don’t hold anything against the “sellers”; we currently consider SmartTiles to be an extended “proof of concept” until some point in the future when we will extensively test and release a product of “commercial quality”. Just today, someone asked how best to promote SmartApps for sale … truth is, we don’t know; … the most obvious answer is via the SmartApp Marketplace (?) and via a reasonable number of Topics and “in-context” posts, I guess.

We’re finding that SmartTiles is receiving about the “industry standard average” amount of donations. I’m not disappointed; though I lean towards emphasizing that we are in the age of crowdfunding, and that sets up a whole new set of expectations and … rules? SmartThings, itself, is the result of successful crowdfunding. So I presume they remember those humble roots.

We’ll figure it out… :confused: :neutral_face:


Back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Just as long as “Reciprocal advertising” doesn’t mean when I click on a video feed in SmartTiles, I end up seeing a SmartThings (or Samsung) commercial.

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