Put Developer Tools Back to Where it Was Until You Publish Your Sidebar Customisation Feature

[ttreker]

What type of request is this?

New dashboard feature

Existing card or feature name

None

Describe the enhancement

Put Developer Tools back on the sidebar until you get customised sidebars out of the lab and into the core. Developer tools has been in that location for many years. I certain can't argue against a more user-friendly UI and a well-organised, intuitive structure for new users. However, until you have provided the option for us to put it back on the sidebar through a customisation as your announcement implied, it seems like there is no good reason to remove it at this point. In working through my automations I make regular use of the developer tools. What was a quick single click is now a click and then a long scroll to the bottom of the list. Getting to the desired tool already has plenty of steps, adding more without an option to keep it as it was doesn't seem to make sense. If you can't see your way to returning it to the sidebar at the very least put it towards the top of the list where one doesn't have to scroll to get to it.

Use cases

Writing automations, understanding ones entities, testing actions, debugging templates... in other words customising Home Assistant. Isn't this what Home Assistant is about?

Visual examples

No response

Anything else?

No response

[brodybuster]

add this to /homeassistant/panel_custom.yaml

- name: panel_develop
    sidebar_title: Developer Tools
    sidebar_icon: mdi:hammer
    url_path: 'config/developer-tools'
    module_url: /api/hassio/app/entrypoint.js
    embed_iframe: true
    require_admin: true

Make sure you have the following in your config.yaml

panel_custom: !include panel_custom.yaml

Then restart HA

[steveklett]

I don't have a panel_custom.yaml file - is that normal and if so, do I just create an empty file with that name?

[brodybuster]

make sure you have the following in your config.yaml

panel_custom: !include panel_custom.yaml

Then restart HA

[slurpey]

I got bad indentation error so here:

- name: panel_develop
  sidebar_title: Developer Tools
  sidebar_icon: mdi:hammer
  url_path: config/developer-tools
  module_url: /api/hassio/app/entrypoint.js
  embed_iframe: true
  require_admin: true

and if you dont have panel_custom.yaml put this in confiuration.yaml directly:

panel_custom:
  - name: panel_develop
    sidebar_title: Developer Tools
    sidebar_icon: mdi:hammer
    url_path: config/developer-tools
    module_url: /api/hassio/app/entrypoint.js
    embed_iframe: true
    require_admin: true

[ttreker]

I created that file and added the stanza to it and it made no difference. Btw, I did restart HA after words and refresh the web page. I can't find Developer Tools anywhere on the sidebar including in the hidden items.

[brodybuster]

make sure you have the following in your config.yaml

panel_custom: !include panel_custom.yaml

Then restart HA

[ttreker]

I am going to back up here. I did not create this post to find a solution for myself. I made this post to express that I believe removing Developer Tools from the sidebar was a mistake.

First off, thanks for your effort but I am not going to go this route. (Btw, entrypoint.js is not in the location where the key points and the only location I found for a file with this name is under hacs. Solving this issue, though, is not the point of this reply.)

The point of this post was to suggest returning Developer Tools to its original location on the next release. If the Home Assistant developers really believe this is a great improvement then at the very least return it to its location until there is a clean way for users to put it back on where it has been for years. A hack to return it to the sidebar for those that are so inclined does not address the issue this post raises.

I personally think removing Developer Tools from the sidebar was far from an ideal choice. If removing it from the menu was meant to be a way to make Home Assistant feel less intimidating to new adopters or to provide a cleaner sidebar menu for family members I think this is mistaken thinking. If the latter is the case, just make it so that you can hide it from the sidebar. If the former is that case Home Assistant, no matter how many triggers and conditions are abstracted to map to easier-to-understand concepts and objects, is always going to require access to the Developer Tools if you want to create any but the simplest of automations. Developer Tools is central to this process. Hiding it away under settings is just a denial of this reality. Developer Tools is an equal to Settings in Home Assistant, not a subcategory of it.

There are just an absolute endless list of things that can be addressed to reduce the steepness of the Home Assistant learning curve for new users. A few of these have been addressed, particularly in the great changes that have been made to the automation editor in recent times which have been just fantastic improvements. Hiding Developer Tools in my view achieves exactly the opposite: in pretending that Developer Tools is not central to applying Home Assistant one is just going to make the learning curve steeper, not shallower.

I would ask that there are no more responses to this post that don't address this issue directly. The point isn't to find a work-around. The point is to discuss the proposition that it was not a good choice to remove Developer Tools from the sidebar and that it should be returned to its equal footing with Settings, not as a subcategory, with the possibility of making it hidable. New users should see it sooner rather than later.

[BBE-FR]

100% agree.

I would even state that "developper tools" are in fact just "Tools", as stated in the doc itself:

They should be renamed as "Toolbox" or "Tools" and be put next to "settings" in the sidebar term of access.

[c11umw]

Raised a similar request to allow users to toggle it on/off in the user "edit sidebar" options
https://github.com/orgs/home-assistant/discussions/2888#discussion-9487524

[sshort1955]

I think the answer is to have it conditional on the "Advanced mode" switch in the profile menu. Back where it was (and in Settings) if enabled, only in settings if disabled.

Simple and relevant.

[pcan08]

Advanced mode will be remove : home-assistant/frontend#52005 (comment)
Seams to be a WIP