Thoughts on the integration

[lordratner]

Hey, it's been a while.

I've been using the Vestaboard now for a few months and I think I've landed on what makes sense for an integration and what makes sense for scripts and automations. I'm interested in your thoughts:

I'd like to change the automation to have a couple new functions. First, a "persistent message." Think of this as the background message for when there is no active notification on the VB. Famous quotes, art, etc. When the integration is used to send a message to the VB, it is posted to the VB and set in the integration as the persistent message in some variable.

Another option when using the integration to post a message is the "alert" option, which is coupled with the "alert duration" option. This message would be posted to the VB, but not set in the persistent message variable The integration then waits for the time in alert_duration to pass, then resets the board to the message stored in the persistent message variable.

If a different alert message is sent while an alert is already on the board, it would just override the older alert message and reset the timer to the new alert duration. Then at the end of the timer the persistent message would be loaded back on the VB.

This would allow a very simple way to send messages such as "There's someone at the front door," or "Dinner is Ready!" without have to have the automation that sets that message figure out how to replace/reset it to the ambient message.

If you send a non-alert message to the board while there is an active alert, then the integration would set that message as the new persistent message variable, but not override the alert. When the timer expires, the integration will load the new message automatically.

Thoughts?

[natekspencer]

I like this idea and actually had a similar thought around building out a "toast" message that would show up temporarily. My thinking is that we wouldn't need to store the persistent message until an "alert" message was sent. This would allow for messages posted from the web, app or other board subscriptions to post a message and have the board revert to whatever was on the board prior to receiving the alert message.

[lordratner]

Yeah that makes sense. So:

For the service vestaboard.message, same as now except add (or replace the decorator? I don't find myself using it often) "Alert" as an optional checkbox with a number field for "Duration" of seconds (can use 60 seconds as a default if no value is sent?).

Then in the integration:

If an alert is sent, check to see if another alert is currently active

alert_is_active == true --> do not update stored_message, post the new message, and reset_time = now() + alert_duration using the new alert's duration
alert_is_active == false --> update stored_message with the current display, post the alert massage, alert_is_active = true, and reset_time = now() + alert_duration with the alert duration

once now > reset_time, grab the message from stored_message and post it.

If a non-alert message is sent:

alert_is_active == true --> update stored_message with the message being sent. That's it. The message will post once the alert expires.
alert_is_active == false --> post the message. done.

Obviously the variables are made up and not formatted to what you've written, but does the idea match up with what you had in mind? This should allow for messages from other sources, and the only difference would be that messaged from HA would not override an alert, and VB app messages would.

Sorry for the delay, We just moved into a new house so the VB fell off the radar.

[lordratner]

Thoughts? I know integrations are all in python, but are there major limitations to writing the code? I'll have to dig around but off the top of my head I'm not sure how to best store the current board state in a variable that can be easily fed back into the board after an alert expires.