Implementation Details

Implementing new Elements

The HomeDing library is not a closed eco system but rather allows adding new functionality by adding new Elements to support a specific functionality, sensor, chip, network service and more.

In the Create and extend a new Element step-by-step article you find how to start with a simple Element implementation that gets extended to support the specific benefits of the ecosystem.

In the development example you can find a Element called TemplateElement that contains all function declarations and empty function implementation for an element that does nothing and some additional information as comments that help implementing new Elements.

The 2 files (TemplateElement.*) can be copied and renamed and the class name should be adjusted as well to create a new element not doing anything yet.

More details about the base implementation and available methods can be found in Element Class description.

The I2C bus is used by many components, sensors, displays and other chips to communicate commands and data. A central configuration is supported on the device level. Som implementation hits can be found in Using the I2C bus.

The Element registry is the central class that knows all included and available Element classes to allow further creation and customization of new Elements by name at runtime.

Firmware implementation details

There is a list of articles on how the HomeDing library works and is built and provides some useful functionality:

• WiFi manager
• Serial Logger
• The safemode
• Network Startup
• Using JSON formatted data

About the Web UI

Implementing the Web UI functionality is almost as important as implementing the Arduino code for the firmware.

There is a list of articles on how the HomeDing library works and is built and provides some useful functionality:

• Introduction
• Embedded Web Site for IoT Devices
• micro behaviors
• micro charts
• micro icons
• micro javascript utils
• micro style
• micro templates
• dialogs
• Portal

Element Meta data

For new elements the list of properties, actions and events should be specified in the elements.json file that is saved on the device.

This file is the basis for the Add a new element dialog in the board implementation.

• Properties are implemented in the set(name, value) method to get the configuration values.
• Actions are also implemented in the set(name, value) method but are expected to be used at runtime by incoming actions.
• Events are outgoing actions to other elements.

Command Line Builds and Uploads for WebFiles

See Command Line CLI commands

See also

• Device Logging

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