[MainUi] improve main ui thermostat icon usage #3979
Description
The problem
Air conditioning units are capable of both cooling and heating as well as fan mode and dehumidification. And some units don’t have “power” switches for each mode, they use string items with different modes. E.g.: all midea based air conditioning units.
Because of this it is impossible (without entering the domain of rules and creating dozens of items) to have a simple way to show in the location card icons if the ac is on, and what mode it is running at.
There’s a “climate “ icon for cooling, and a “heating” one, and both change visually when connected to a dedicated power item, but once you start adding more modes and showing them in the main ui things become bloated.
Your suggestion
My wish would be to have a way for the main ui to show different icons based on command options/string item options.
So if my item has such options as heat;cool;fan;dry;auto, I would like to be able to pick and choose one different item for each option, so that when someone turns on the ac the main ui “location” card of the room would have an icon pop up showcasing the mode the ac is running at (e.g.: for cool I would select the Climate icon.)
I don’t know how else to sort this out without going into creating one extra switch item for each mode, and a rule for each mode to turn on and off each switch and having 5 extra items in my location cards… this is… very low on the WaF. And because I have 5 air conditioning units we’re talking about 25 items just to show icons on the main ui :(
Your environment
Docker, latest milestone OpenHAB.
If any bit is unclear I would be happy to add more information.