[ANNOUNCE] node-red-contrib-ui-countdown-timer-switch

fellinga · 4 January 2021 16:00

It's always nice to automate things but sometimes automation needs some flexibility that can be triggered manually. I've created a UI node that is basically a simple switch but displays the time it was activated and turns itself off after a certain amount of time (it also displays the end time).

cts-demo

What is it for?

My personal use case was to activate an irrigation system outside of scheduled times, but you can obviously use it for basically everything.

Highlights

easily activate a device for a specific amount of time at the node-red dashboard
create just one or as many countdowns as you need
choose between a button/dropdown layout

Your feedback is appreciated

Feel free to make suggestions or report problems at the nodes GitHub site.

Thank you!

dynamicdave · 4 January 2021 16:07

Wooo - this is brilliant, I'm going to use it to make a Cooking Timer.

SonoraTechnical · 4 January 2021 16:38

Brilliant. I will use this to trigger water changes outside of the scheduled times in my Fish Nook, once I actually build the water change routine.
( Aquarium Controller - Raspberry PI 4B Node-RED, Atlas-Scientific i2c Devices, NCD i2c Relay Board )

hotNipi · 4 January 2021 17:06

Nice widget.
Couple of things to improve:
The node has input and output but the help page (or Readme in github) says nothing about the message requirements or content of messages the node expects or fires.

The styles of items in editable list:

It would be nice if default size fits without need of scrollbars.

Configurable values - the unit of time is not shown or mentioned.

Configuring too many options ends with elements overlapping

Also may be it would be nice to present buttons in value based order?

But overall very usable widget.

fellinga · 4 January 2021 21:21

Thanks for the feedback @hotNipi

Works pretty well for me, tested in Firefox, Chrome and even in Safari. What's your setup?

hotNipi · 4 January 2021 21:48

Laptop Thinkpad
Windows 10

Browser Chrome, latest (no zoom)
Any other node using the editable list, has no scrollbars when not needed.

The change nod for example

hotNipi · 4 January 2021 21:53

By removing this it is rendered correctly.

fellinga · 15 January 2021 16:11

I updated the help page today, fixed the editable list and added a unit to it.

The editable list already offers a sorting mechanism. This way the user can decide and there might be a good reason to have it not in a certain order .

The user can increase the groups width and display more buttons if needed, but I am aware that the current solution with many entries is not pretty. This is the reason why I added the optional dropdown menu, so that a user can add many entries and the widget still preserves space.
I am not sure if I want to start a new line if it exceeds the current row...since it would take up more space, but it's probably the only solution... open to suggestions though.

v1.2.0: now also allows activating the timer via incoming messages (msg.countdown).

v1.3.0: allows to add a msg.topic and a label to the widget (both are optional)