v0.6.0

Release Notes

v0.6.0

Note

This is a major release with significant architectural improvements, new widgets, and hardware support.

🎉 Major Features

Layout Manager

• Multi-Device Support: Manage multiple e-ink devices from a single interface
• Export/Import Layouts: Save and share your dashboard designs as files
• Switch between devices seamlessly with persistent configurations

Completely Redesigned UI

• Fresh Modern Interface: Complete visual overhaul - easier on the eyes
• Light Mode: New light theme for users who prefer a brighter workspace
• Canvas Controls: Zoom in/out and recenter the canvas for precise editing

Template-Free Workflow

• No More Templates Required: The generator now produces a complete, standalone configuration
• Simply paste the generated YAML below ESPHome's auto-generated sections
• Makes setup child's play - no manual template merging needed

New Widgets

• Quote / RSS Feed Widget: Display inspirational quotes or RSS feed content

  • RSS feed URL configuration with popular default (BrainyQuote)
  • Optional author display, random quote selection
  • Configurable refresh interval (15min to 24h)
  • Word wrap, italic styling, full font customization
  • Zero configuration: No configuration.yaml entries or Home Assistant sensors needed
  • Note: Functional but formatting not fully respected - unfinished feature

• QR Code Widget: Generate QR codes directly on your e-ink display

  • Configurable content string (URLs, text, etc.)
  • Four error correction levels (LOW, MEDIUM, QUARTILE, HIGH)
  • Auto-scaling to fit widget dimensions

• Weather Forecast Widget: Multi-day weather forecast display

  • Shows upcoming weather conditions with dynamic icons
  • Integrates with Home Assistant weather entities
  • Note: Requires a weather entity configured in Home Assistant

• Vertical Lines: Draw vertical lines (untested)

📱 New Hardware Support

reTerminal E1002 - Color E-Ink Display

• Full color e-paper support for the Seeed Studio reTerminal E1002
• Color rendering for all widgets and shapes
• Same easy workflow as E1001 - just select your device type

TRMNL (ESP32-C3)

• New device support: TRMNL e-paper hardware now fully supported
• Dedicated hardware template (trmnl_lambda.yaml)
• Correct SPI and battery sensor configurations
• Proper busy_pin logic

Warning

Experimental Feature: Online Image (remote URLs) widget is an initial implementation and may be buggy or broken. Use at your own discretion.

🔧 Architecture Overhaul

• Modular Frontend Architecture: Complete refactor of the monolithic editor.js (276KB) into a modular system:

  • yaml_export.js - Clean YAML generation with per-widget handling
  • yaml_import.js - Robust YAML parsing and import
  • canvas.js - Canvas rendering and interaction
  • state.js - Centralized application state management
  • properties.js - Widget property panel generation
  • widget_factory.js - Standardized widget creation
  • keyboard.js - Keyboard shortcuts handling
  • Improved maintainability and extensibility

• Feature-Based Widget System: Backend now uses a features/ directory with:

  • Per-widget schema.json for property definitions
  • Per-widget render.js for canvas preview rendering
  • Standardized widget registration and discovery

🐛 Bug Fixes

Widget Rendering

• Line Widget: Fixed length synchronization between canvas preview and e-ink display
• Line Widget: Fixed drag resize functionality
• Rectangle Border: Corrected border-box positioning discrepancy between canvas and e-ink
• Weather Forecast: Fixed positioning at correct X/Y coordinates
• Graph Grid Lines: Fixed x_grid values not generating correctly in YAML

Sensor & Entity Handling

• Sensor ID Generation: Fixed sensor ID stripping for battery_icon, sensor_text, progress_bar, and weather_icon widgets
  • Correctly strips sensor. and weather. prefixes when generating ESPHome id() references
• Quote/RSS Widget: Added WiFi connection check and startup delay for reliable fetching

Font System

• Italic Font Support: Fixed italic fonts not being correctly referenced in lambda code
  • Text widgets now use _italic suffix (e.g., font_roboto_900_100_italic) when italic is enabled
  • Quote RSS widget correctly references italic font IDs
• Font Validation: Fixed font_roboto_400_24 validation warning in battery_icon widget
• Italic Persistence: Fixed italic property not persisting for sensor_text and datetime widgets after YAML update

Device Settings & Persistence

• Device Name Sync: Fixed device name changes not persisting in Device Settings modal and Manage Layouts list
• Device Settings Modal: Fixed settings reverting upon re-opening

YAML Generation

• Duplicate SPI Removal: Fixed duplicate SPI configuration in generated YAML
• YAML Duplicate Fixes: Various fixes for duplicate section generation

🔄 Technical Improvements

• Frontend Feature Registry: Dynamic widget type discovery and registration
• Schema-Driven Properties: Widget properties now defined in JSON schemas
• Improved Error Handling: Better error messages and AppState.notify integration
• Code Organization: Clear separation between core, UI, IO, and utility modules

---

v0.5.0

Warning

BREAKING CHANGE: This version requires the latest hardware template.
Global settings have been moved to the template.
You MUST update your reterminal_e1001_lambda.yaml (or equivalent) to the latest version for these features to work.
Old templates will cause compilation errors or ignore your power settings.

🎉 Major Features

• Page Management:
  • Drag & Drop Reordering: You can now reorder pages in the sidebar by dragging them.
  • Persistent Page Names: Custom page names are now saved in the YAML and restored upon import.
• New Power Management UI: Complete redesign with radio buttons for clear, mutually exclusive power modes:
  • Standard (Always On) - Auto-refresh based on page intervals
  • Night Mode - Screen off during specified hours for energy savings
  • Manual Refresh Only - Updates only via button or Home Assistant trigger
  • Deep Sleep (Battery Saver) - Device offline between updates for maximum power savings
• Deep Sleep Support: Full ESPHome deep sleep implementation with configurable intervals (default: 600s)
• Smart Text Optimization: Automatically strips unused characters from large static fonts to save massive amounts of RAM, preventing compilation crashes. Dynamic text (sensors) remains untouched.

🐛 Bug Fixes

Settings & Persistence

• Device Settings Persistence: Fixed all device settings (power mode, sleep times, deep sleep interval) not saving and jumping back to defaults on restart.
• Page Refresh Rates: Fixed page refresh intervals not persisting and resetting when updating layout from YAML.
• Power Management Settings: Fixed settings resetting to "Standard" mode when updating layout from YAML.

YAML Generation

• Script Generation: Fixed wrong script generated for deep sleep mode (was using auto-refresh loop instead of simple sleep).
• Display Lambda: Fixed missing COLOR_ON/COLOR_OFF definitions causing compilation errors.
• Sensor Text Widget: Fixed value-only mode (no label) missing critical YAML sections (button:, font:, script:, globals:).
• Refresh Intervals: Fixed page refresh intervals < 60 seconds being filtered out.
• No-Refresh Window: Fixed invalid conditions generated when window not configured (0-0 case).
• Manual Refresh Mode: Fixed manual refresh showing unnecessary page interval logic (now minimal script only).

Widget Improvements

• Line Widget: Fixed lines not rendering straight on e-paper (right side was ~10px lower).
• Image Widget: Fixed missing path property in UI and drag functionality not working.
• Battery Icon: Fixed percentage text not centering underneath battery symbol when icon is enlarged.
• Sensor Text Alignment: Added separate alignment options for label and value (e.g., label left, value right) with WYSIWYG canvas preview.
• DateTime Widget: Verified alignment options working correctly.
• Progress Bar Widget: Verified alignment options working correctly.

Font System

• Google Fonts: Fonts now work correctly - all fonts pre-defined in template (Template-Only approach).
• Font Selection: Verified font dropdown shows all 15 supported families.
• Font Persistence: Fixed font selections (Family, Weight, Size) for Sensor Text widgets not persisting through YAML updates.

🔧 Technical Improvements

• Frontend/Backend Parity: Both generators now produce identical output.
• Robust Import: applyImportedLayout() now merges settings instead of overwriting, preserving user preferences.
• Smart Parsing: The YAML parser now intelligently extracts page names and refresh rates from comments and code logic.
• YAML Highlighting: Selecting a widget on the canvas now automatically highlights its corresponding YAML definition in the snippet box.

v0.4.6.1

• Critical Bug Fix: Fixed JavaScript error ReferenceError: isTextSensor is not defined in snippet generator that prevented YAML generation and caused compilation errors.

v0.4.6

• Number Sensor Fix: Fixed a bug where number sensors were interpreted as text sensors, causing them to show gibberish or fail to compile.
• Graph Improvements: X and Y information are now automatically added if the user adds min/max information or time information in the widget settings.
• Graph Persistence: Fixed a bug where graph minimum/maximum values and duration were not saving to YAML. These values would reset when "Update Layout from YAML" was pressed.
• Known Bugs:
  • Puppet widget is still unstable.
  • Straight lines are not perfectly straight.
  • Visible conditions are not fully tested and might fail to compile.

v0.4.5

• Min/Max Visibility: Added support for numeric range conditions (Min/Max) with AND/OR logic for widget visibility. Perfect for progress bars (e.g., 0 < value < 100).
• Boot Stability: Updated the default hardware template (reterminal_e1001_lambda.yaml) to remove the immediate display update from on_boot, preventing boot loops on heavy layouts.
• WiFi Sensor: Added wifi_signal_db to the default hardware template (diagnostic entity).
• GUI Updates: Added "Update Layout from YAML" button to the editor for easier round-trip editing.
• Graph Widget Fixes: Fixed persistence of min_value, max_value, min_range, and max_range properties.
• Editor Fixes: Fixed CSS regression and ensured fullscreen editing works correctly.
• Text Sensor Persistence: Fixed "Is Text Sensor?" checkbox state not saving to backend.
• Puppet Widget Fixes: Fixed Puppet/Online Image widgets not saving to backend, added automatic http_request dependency, and fixed URL corruption in parser.
• Puppet Stability: Added on_error handler and conditional page updates to prevent crashes and unnecessary refreshes.
• Conditional Visibility: Fixed C++ compilation error when using conditional visibility with numeric sensors (removed invalid atof check).

v0.4.4

• Text Sensor Support: Added "Is Text Sensor?" checkbox to sensor_text widget to correctly format string states (fixes NaN issue).
• Entity Picker Limit: Increased the entity fetch limit from 1000 to 5000 to support larger Home Assistant installations.
• Default Template Fixes: Updated reterminal_e1001_lambda.yaml to match default dashboard entity IDs (sensor_reterminal_e1001_...) and device name.
• Canvas Responsiveness: Improved canvas scaling and centering on smaller screens.

v0.4.3

New Features

• Copy/Paste: Added support for copying and pasting widgets using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V. Pasted widgets are automatically offset for visibility.
• Undo/Redo: Implemented Undo (Ctrl+Z) and Redo (Ctrl+Y or Ctrl+Shift+Z) functionality for widget operations (move, resize, add, delete, property changes).
• Fullscreen YAML Editing: The fullscreen YAML view is now editable and includes an "Update Layout from YAML" button to apply changes directly.
• Sidebar Visibility Control: Added a configuration option to show or hide the integration in the Home Assistant sidebar.
• Canvas Responsiveness: The editor canvas now dynamically scales and centers to fit smaller screens, ensuring the entire layout is visible without scrolling.

Bug Fixes

• Ghost Pages: Fixed an issue where deleted pages would persist in the generated YAML snippet.
• Undo/Redo Stability: Fixed issues where Undo would jump back multiple steps or become unresponsive due to duplicate history states or missing drag state capture.
• Graph Persistence: Fixed Continuous: true setting not saving correctly.
• Page Jump: Fixed editor jumping to the first page after layout updates.
• Weather Text Color: Fixed weather widget text color reverting to black.

v0.4.2

• Graph Widget: Added automated sensor info (min/max) based on Home Assistant entity attributes.
• Circle Widget: Enforced 1:1 aspect ratio during resize to prevent distortion.
• Manifest: Version bump.