v2.7.6 - "Watts Moving" — energy flow animation focus

Solar Bar Card - Releases

v2.7.6

"Watts Moving" — energy flow animation focus

• Forecast peak solar indicator (peak_forecast_entity): Shows today's forecast peak solar power as a solid line on the bar, using the same color as the existing dashed forecast indicator. When use_solcast is enabled, auto-detects sensor.solcast_pv_forecast_peak_forecast_today (with a fallback search for any Solcast entity containing peak and today). A manual entity can also be configured independently. The indicator is shown whenever the peak forecast value is greater than zero and a source is configured.
• Energy flow threshold (energy_flow_threshold): Configurable deadband (default ±0.1 kW) for import/export flow detection. Power levels below this threshold are treated as idle, preventing rapid dot flickering when the system sits near zero.
• Solar drop origin (energy_flow_origin): Choose where the solar drop line originates — bar_center (default, middle of the full solar bar) or production_center (middle of the filled production segments, moves with solar output). Production center is rounded to 5 SVG units to reduce unnecessary path rebuilds.
• House icon: New show_house_icon option adds a 32px house icon to the left of the bar, representing home consumption. Colored by the self-usage palette color, switches to import color when only grid power is being consumed. Tappable with the usage tap action.
• Energy flow lines: New show_energy_flow option renders animated flow lines below the bar visualising energy paths between solar, house, grid, and battery using a shared bus architecture:
  • Left bus: solar junction → house. All consumption flows (solar self-use, battery discharge, grid import) travel left along this shared bus.
  • Right bus: solar junction → grid. Export flows right; import flows left from grid across both buses to house.
  • Vertical stubs: solar drops down to the junction; battery stub taps into the left bus (particles flow up for charge, down for discharge).
  • One subtle neutral dashed line renders the bus infrastructure; colored particles animate per-flow on top.
  • Solar drop-line is hidden when no solar is generated.
• Energy flow speed: New energy_flow_speed option to control animation speed (default 2 seconds).

Improvements

• Split bus rendering: Energy flow dots are now split into two independent groups — stable flows (solar→house, solar→battery, battery→house) and grid flows (solar→grid, grid→house). When import/export state changes, only the grid group rebuilds with crossfade; left-side animations continue uninterrupted.
• Fully static bus lines: All bus line segments (including the no-solar grid-to-house stub) are now drawn based on element presence only, never on active flow state. This eliminates bus line redraws when flow direction changes.
• Power-scaled animation speed: Energy flow dot speed now reflects actual power levels — higher power flows move faster, lower power flows move slower. Uses compressed exponent scaling (power^0.35) so even small flows remain visible. Speed is also normalized by path length so dots travel at consistent visual speed regardless of distance, fixing the issue where short-path dots appeared sluggish while long-path dots raced.
• Dot visibility on vertical segments: Changed opacity fade-in/fade-out keyTimes from 10%/90% to 3%/97% of the animation cycle. Dots are now visible as they travel down the vertical drop lines and up the destination stubs, instead of being invisible during those segments.
• Crossfade on flow topology change: When energy flow paths change (e.g., export starts/stops, battery switches between charge/discharge), the old SVG fades out over 400ms while the new one appears, replacing the abrupt mid-path dot disappearance.
• Grid icon export threshold: Aligned the grid icon color threshold with the flow dot threshold (> 0 instead of > 0.05). The grid icon now shows its export color whenever export flow dots are visible, even at minimal export levels.
• Persistent bus infrastructure: Bus lines (dashed) now always render between connected elements regardless of active flow. Only animated dots appear/disappear with actual power.
• Uniform dot spacing: Dot count per flow scales with path length (~1 dot per 150 SVG units, clamped 2–5) instead of a fixed 3 per flow, keeping consistent visual spacing across short and long buses.

Bug Fixes

• Grid icon circle colors not applying: Fixed grid_icon_import_color, grid_icon_export_color, and grid_icon_idle_color config options being ignored.
• Tower icon color flash on load: Fixed the transmission tower icon briefly appearing white before the configured grid_icon_color took effect.

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