Feature request: use environment or global variable to set location

[drmibell]

I have home automation flows with solar events that I would like to use at several locations. Editing schedules to change lat/lon can get tedious, so I wonder if a shell environment variable or a global defined in settings.js could be used.

[Steve-Mcl]

Have you tried using ${MY_SHELL_ENV_VAR} ?

[drmibell]

Yes, but I got errors because I was using an old version, 1.3.0, I think. Updating fixed it. Only a few small issues. I get a pop-up saying "Error: Cannot get description from node-red" as soon as I start typing in that field, even if everything works after I close the dialog. Also, the node accepts a single string like ${LOCATION} but not ${LAT} ${LON} or anything else I've tried with two separate variables. (The second is no big deal.) Finally, because I was running NR on a Pi as a systemd session, I had trouble getting it to pick up my environment variables. I ended up using process.env.LOCATION= "38.897517, -77.036542" in the settings.js file. Is there a better way?

[Steve-Mcl]

In v2.0.0 (just released), a default location (for all schedules in a node) can be set by ENV VAR.

NOTE: Env vars can be picked up by setting them in the TAB, a group or the new global env vars in NR 3.1.0 (due very soon)