Dev tools states shows friendly_name instead of entity_id

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

Checklist

[X] I have updated to the latest available Home Assistant version.
[X] I have cleared the cache of my browser.
[X] I have tried a different browser to see if it is related to my browser.

Describe the issue you are experiencing

as title. We go to the dev tools pages to be able to check and confirm our state and entity_id's and showing the friendly_name in the entity field does not help. Please return to showing entity_id. Friendly_name is also shown in the details list, so very easy to check on that anyways. We have that twice, and no entity_id.

Please note we can have multiple entities with the same friendly_name: sensor, binary_sensor, input_boolean, heck, even automation.... we need to be able to see and differentiate in 1 glance as much as possible.

thanks for considering

Describe the behavior you expected

show entity_id like before

Steps to reproduce the issue

nothing special, just navigate to the dev tools
...

What version of Home Assistant Core has the issue?

2022.3.X

What was the last working version of Home Assistant Core?

2022.2

In which browser are you experiencing the issue with?

Any

Which operating system are you using to run this browser?

MacOS Monterey 12.2.1

State of relevant entities

No response

Problem-relevant frontend configuration

No response

Javascript errors shown in your browser console/inspector

No response

Additional information

No response

ildar170975 commented 2 years ago

Another example: Can you guess what “entity_id” is displayed here? Vote for displaying "entity_id" instead of "friendly_name".

nickrout commented 2 years ago

What appears there does seem to depend on how the entity is chosen (which IMHO is undesirably inconsistent)

Option 1: search for the entity at the top of the page in the set state dialog, and the friendly name is shown

Option 2: search for the entity in "Filter Entities" in the lower panel, then click on the entity name, the old behaviour is shown and the entity_id appears in the "Set State" dialog above UNLESS the entity has first been chosen in Option 1.

parautenbach commented 2 years ago

This seems like something for the UX person that joined the team a while ago to have a good look at. I'm a principled person, so I'd say (as a design principle): Information in a dev (debug) tool should be complete and at a low level to be useful. The friendly name is a property of the entity and in this case shouldn't be the primary method to identify something. Having an option to look up by friendly name is useful, but at its core, the entity ID is what connects everything. Friendly names aren't unique. Entity IDs are.

ildar170975 commented 2 years ago

I agree that Dev tools should be low level. Sometimes I have to post a screenshot of the “set state” area in the Community to get a technical support. The more information is provided the better.

emufan commented 2 years ago

Can only second this. First the hiding/dropdown in the last release, now this one. The dev-tools should really stay useful and not with all this, what is recently done.

ildar170975 commented 2 years ago

Same useless changes for Automations: https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/issues/11870

RoboMagus commented 2 years ago

It's not just dev-tools. Similar with History, and it's really ~~F-ing~~ annoying! There should be some place that holds the entity_id so we can find the reference for the thing that needs to be manipulated e.g. in yaml.

I would happily call this a bug, but I fear that the devs have made the explicit choice to implement this as a feature. (hope I'm wrong though).

Regardless of what's supposed to end up in those boxes, the fact that it auto-completes entity_id's and then just replaces it with the friendly name is not a great user experience.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

one might even say this extends to the Areas view also:

where one would believe these to be media_players, but they are a switch and a sensors, or

for device, media_player and google_cast.

RoboMagus commented 2 years ago

@zsarnett, Since there are minor fixes being pushed through in some intermediate releases. Any chance this will be picked up soon too? This is clearly an impractical change.

OzGav commented 2 years ago

I’m adding my voice to those concerned about this change. @nickrout makes a very good point about the inconsistency of the behaviour on the dev tools page. Whilst I now know how to get the info on this page that I want (by searching in the filter entities box) there are many other examples posted by others above that show there is an issue here. Link to my forum post https://community.home-assistant.io/t/developer-tools-no-longer-shows-entity-id/408581/2

PolarLava commented 2 years ago

I have to agree that this has made life unnecessarily more difficult for those of us who live in the YAML config world. Previously you could cut-and-paste entity_id's and you've taken that option away. If we can't go back to the way it was can we at least compromise and have both "Friendly Name" and "Entity ID" fields? At least that way everyone gets what they want or need here.

The additional step of having to click "Set State" in order to enter and entity is also a nuisance, but not nearly as bad as this change. Again, if we can't have the previous setup where the Entity field was displayed on page load, can we at least have a compromise? Either a configuration variable that sets "Set State" open or closed by default or, once I click "Set State" it stays open? This may make the interface cleaner, but as a debugging took it's just adding unnecessary overhead.

OzGav commented 2 years ago

Good point on the additional step. I also find that tedious.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

while we can search on the actual entity_id in dev tools state, I now discovered we can NOT do that in config/script/dashboard and related pages.

Debugging my yaml script, and copying several script id's on this search bar rendered no result.

and we Must use the Name:

which makes this functionality drift even more away from a Streamlined experience.

the only tab where we can still use the id's is the helpers page.

So I hope this can be brought back to automations/scenes/script too

ristomatti commented 2 years ago

Please prioritize or at least confirm this will be fixed at some point 🙏.

I was very excited about the entity id autocomplete in UI editors but this seems oddly to contradicting to what it offers. For me this is a blocker to upgrade. Especially the entity search, it's got to be a bug?

emufan commented 2 years ago

As the

ids are now more or less hidden/unusable,
the 2nd level config pages are a lot of clicks further away,
the state set window in developer tools is hidden,
the developer tools itself will be moved/hidden in whatever deep menu inside config menu in the next config menu release,
the new cards (e.g. energy ones) don't have any customizing anymore
etc. etc.

I unfortunately see that all this belongs together. In which direction, ever. Either the ones, who are deciding and implementing this, are not using it on their own, so they perhaps absolutely don't care about the problems and needed effort or perhaps don't want that other are using this anymore in the future at all. It is really a pity, as HA is of course great.

KennethLavrsen commented 2 years ago

I agree here. Hiding entity_id results in trouble for me also as I have duplicate names in many cases - at least until I rename the devices or entities. We need to be able to see and look for entitiy IDs for many of the more advanced things and for finding why things do not work

ristomatti commented 2 years ago

I unfortunately see that all this belongs together.

I can definitely imagine the long time goal would be to simplfy things for wider adoption. However I think it would be very premature to start hiding the technical details at this point. Attracted by the GUI configurability, I shifted from a purely Node-RED based setup ~6 months ago but I'm already neck deep in yaml. Without it, you'll only get so far.

I believe this change was just an unfortunate side-effect of trying to improve the UX for beginners. The team seems to be pushing new features at such a crazy pace, there's no way to avoid creating a ton of regression bugs given the massiven scale and complexity of the project.

But this discussion is not really contributing to solving the issue. Let's just hope it gets fixed sooner than later! :slightly_smiling_face:

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

here's what Petro suggests to do about that: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/2022-4-groups-groups-groups/408965/579

we ned to take this from 'Issue' to 'Discussion'. suggestion to open:

My recommendation is to do the following for a discussion:

Make all searches behave the same way. I.e. filter based on name or entity_id. When the result is selected from the searched list. It will show both the name and entity_id. Just like it does in the dropdown list when selecting. The visible name will continue to be the searchbox, where the entity_id will be static text that is not alterable. However you can highlight and select it.

I believe that to be sane advise, and will try to do that later on. If anyone else gets there before me, please dont hold back ;-) just reference this issue, to keep things connected

ildar170975 commented 2 years ago

My suggestion is short - make it as it was before. I do not appreciate a “make things simple and clear for dumb people” trend.

zsarnett commented 2 years ago

We will look at adding the entity ID back to the developer tools as we agree it should be there. But adding entity ID back to all entity dropdowns is not likely.

Filtering based on the ID could be possible for all dropdowns but will need to look at that implementation.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

opened discussion at https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/discussions/12304

thanks Zack, appreciated! it should at least be consistent all over, either which way is finally adopted. See the issue I found at the https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/issues/11938#issuecomment-1094263934 where the one page behaves differently from the others.

hope this can truly get Streamlined!

bschatzow commented 2 years ago

I agree with you @Mariusthvdb that all should be consistent. It looks according to @zsarnett above that is not going to happen.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

hmm, not directly related, but still: https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/pull/12355 its going to be a whole other set of dev tools soon, where we get Tips too...

emufan commented 2 years ago

Where do you see "whole other set of dev tools soon"? I see only another (for me personally unwanted, because I know this for years) Tip appearing.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

see: https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/discussions/12022#discussioncomment-2627542 and ofc I was a bit overstating it...

github-actions[bot] commented 2 years ago

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

Keep

Anders-McLean commented 2 years ago

BUMP!! It has gone 7 months of pure pain and suffering. This bug is causing disasters every day of trying to develop for HA. PLEACE BRING BACK ENTITY IDS. Here is my longer rant about this.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 years ago

I've filed a WHT on this matter, because its also the other parts in the UI suffering this: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/wth-why-are-all-entities-named-identically-and-unrecognizable-in-the-ui-helper-options/467983

8875fa2b07adf66ff9f881dccd0a704bd75ee8e6_2_419x500

ildar170975 commented 1 year ago

Registered a similar issue for "Automations" list: https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/issues/14874

ildar170975 commented 1 year ago

For Dev tools -> Set state - finally solved in https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/pull/16484

Mariusthvdb commented 1 year ago

yes, but only there...

not eg in Area overview:

as mentioned above

ildar170975 commented 1 year ago

The original issue was only about Dev tools -> set state Probably for other places separate issues required.

kerryland commented 1 year ago

The original issue was only about Dev tools -> set state Probably for other places separate issues required.

It needs a holistic solution, not a piecemeal one.

github-actions[bot] commented 11 months ago

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

ildar170975 commented 11 months ago

up

github-actions[bot] commented 8 months ago

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

kerryland commented 8 months ago

It's still really stupid

ildar170975 commented 8 months ago

The initial issue is solved: As I already proposed before - for other places separated issues should be made.

kerryland commented 8 months ago

As I already proposed before - for other places separated issues should be made.

And as I already suggested, this needs a holistic solution, not a piecemeal one. Let's not play whack-a-mole.

kerryland commented 8 months ago

i.e. if every page's behaviour is unique, I'd suggest they're doing it wrong.

github-actions[bot] commented 5 months ago

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

Mariusthvdb commented 5 months ago

keep please.

github-actions[bot] commented 2 months ago

There hasn't been any activity on this issue recently. Due to the high number of incoming GitHub notifications, we have to clean some of the old issues, as many of them have already been resolved with the latest updates. Please make sure to update to the latest Home Assistant version and check if that solves the issue. Let us know if that works for you by adding a comment 👍 This issue has now been marked as stale and will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

Mariusthvdb commented 2 months ago

any point in keeping this open?

ildar170975 commented 2 months ago

Do not think there is a reason of keeping THIS issue open. For other places there are separate issues....

ildar170975 commented 2 months ago

Hmm, this issue - https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/issues/11870 - is about showing friendly_name in Automation UI editor:

But there are NO similar issues for:

UI editor (like for Entities card) - guess which entity is shown here (all are different ids): (plus - related https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/issues/17395)
History page, Services (now Actions) - for "Target": (there is only my ignored discussion - https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/discussions/18640)

kerryland commented 2 months ago

Literally everywhere where "friendly name" is displayed it should be possible to easily view the entity_id, which is why I've been moaning about a "holistic solution". Custom code on every page is the wrong way to do it.

But I swear I will shut up now and go away. No need to waste everyone's time listening to me!

ildar170975 commented 2 months ago

Literally everywhere where "friendly name" is displayed it should be possible to easily view the entity_id

Agreed

which is why I've been moaning about a "holistic solution". Custom code on every page is the wrong way to do it.

Agreed again. But seems Devs do not care.

home-assistant / frontend