[thing-details] Extend special handling of "actions" parameter group to all bindings

[mbronk]

The problem

Currently, the Thing Details view handles Z-Wave binding special, and presents a list of actions (<parameter-group name="actions">) as clickable buttons, with confirmation prompt.

This behavior is nice and desirable, but specific to Z-Wave binding only:

• openhab-webui/bundles/org.openhab.ui/web/src/pages/settings/things/thing-details.vue

  Lines 374 to 378 in 60fd5f3

  	// special treatment for Z-Wave actions
  	if (this.thingType.UID.indexOf('zwave') === 0) {
  	this.zwaveActions = this.configDescriptions.parameters.filter((p) => p.groupName === 'actions')
  	this.configDescriptions.parameters = this.configDescriptions.parameters.filter((p) => p.groupName !== 'actions')
  	}

• openhab-webui/bundles/org.openhab.ui/web/src/pages/settings/things/thing-details.vue

  Lines 110 to 119 in 60fd5f3

  	<f7-block class="block-narrow" v-if="ready && !error && thingType && thingType.UID.indexOf('zwave') === 0">
  	<f7-col>
  	<f7-block-title>Z-Wave</f7-block-title>
  	<f7-list>
  	<f7-list-button color="blue" title="View Network Map" @click="openZWaveNetworkPopup" />
  	<f7-list-button color="blue" v-for="action in zwaveActions" :key="action.name" :title="action.label" @click="doZWaveAction(action)" />
  	</f7-list>
  	</f7-col>
  	<z-wave-network-popup :opened="zwaveNetworkPopupOpened" @closed="zwaveNetworkPopupOpened = false" />
  	</f7-block>

Your suggestion

Make the abovementioned behavior more generic (remove hard-code for Z-Wave, allow other bindings to use it).

Exemplary proposal

Use the "action" behavior IFF the following heuristic match is true:
groupName == 'actions' && groupLabel === 'Actions' && groupDescription === 'Actions' && action.type === 'BOOLEAN'
^--- The values have been picked to be backwards-compatible with existing Zwave binding's implementation. Assumption is these values would never be i18n'ed and we want to avoid extra conditions.

Note: A bigger (more semantically correct) change may include changing the Configuration Description DSL to include a new parameter group and/or type (say: action) and remove the heuristic matching by group/param name. This would be a OH-core change, though and given this Z-Wave hardcode has been around for ~3y now, seems to be an overkill to introduce now IMHO.

Rationale

It is customary for some devices to include a "reset to factory default" functionality. Z-Wave binding's paradigm of showing such one-off "commands" as actions seems appropriate and would create consistent UX.

Your environment

runtimeInfo:
  version: 3.4.0

Additional information

Disclaimer: I'm currently developing a binding which would benefit from this functionality.

[ghys]

Hi @mbronk,
this makes perfect sense and would be glad to accept a PR with the implementation.
I had some concerns about "actions" groups not necessarily meant as buttons therefore it was limited to the Z-Wave binding in the original implementation (to emulate functionality from HABmin mostly), but this could certainly be extended.

[mbronk]

Hi @ghys,
Thx for the comment. Since this is a very subtle change, I've created a naive PR #1498 for the changes mentioned above (and added a very basic "support" (extra disclaimer/color) for verify param as well).

FYI - I do not have a fully-functional Z-Wave setup at this time, so I guess it wouldn't hurt if someone who does, also took a 2nd look as well...

---

Full disclosure: I actually don't even have a full on node/vue dev env, and the changes seemed small enough not to invest in setting everything up. Alas, I have not run full set of automated tests (taking a leap of faith and trusting the CI here, as far as I've seen this should be transparent to them though), and made only a rudimentary smoke test proving that the buttons do seem to work on my setup...

Sorry if this seems half-baked. I won't be able to allocate more time to it in near future and figured it is worth submitting as-is. If the PR creates more chaos than it helps - feel free to reject right off the bat.

Cheers!