Hide side bar for non-admin only (conditional)

[Mariusthvdb]

Please let me bring an issue forward, I can not figure out with my current tools.
I need to hide the side bar for non-admin. This is rather straightforward using the non-admin settings:

non_admin_settings:
  hide_menubutton: true

but, this is too permanent, in my case, I need to allow them every now and give them to access their settings page, to adjust/set a specific setting in the companion app settings....

so, I figured Id create a boolean:

template:

  - binary_sensor:
 
      - unique_id: hide_sidebar_for_non_admin
        state: >
          {{is_state('input_boolean.hide_sidebar_for_non_admin','on') and xxx }}

to which I can add some other conditions (xxx) or the binary to be 'on'. (ofc, I could also use the boolean for the single setting toggle)

With this, I can toggle my admin boolean, allow them temporary access, and after that toggle back to 'off'

But, I can only use those I the entity_settings, and not the other main settings in Kiosk-mode...

Am I not seeing the obvious, or do I have a challenge here, I hope you can fix somehow..

Guess what I am looking for is smiting like:

non_admin_settings:
    entity: binary_sensor.hide_sidebar_for_non_admin

or:

non_admin_settings:
  - entity:
      binary_sensor.hide_sidebar_for_non_admin: 'on'

or maybe even:

non_admin_settings:
  hide_sidebar: >
    {{states('binary_sensor.hide_sidebar_for_non_admin')}}

This would allow for my generic settings:
admins get the full option of show_side_panel, non_admin users have the sidebar hidden by default, except for specific cases.

Please have a look?
thx!

[elchininet]

Hi @Mariusthvdb,

It is not exactly what you are describing, but you can achieve what you are searching knowing the overriding order. Knowing that entity_settings rules over the rest of the conditional configs, you could do something like this:

non_admin_settings:
  hide_sidebar: true
entity_settings:
  - entity:
       input_boolean.show_sidebar: 'on'
    hide_sidebar: false

When show_sidebar is on it will override the hide_sidebar setting under non_admin_settings.

[Mariusthvdb]

Ha that is actually quite clever ;-)
Or...

Have to check if that does not interfere with my other settings, specifically the hide_sidebar: false boolean for my admin settings...

Thx for the suggestion !

[Mariusthvdb]

there s bit of an unexpected behavior:
I can not toggle any of the settings from another browser window....

using:

non_admin_settings:
  hide_sidebar: true
  hide_menubutton: true
  hide_overflow: true
#   ignore_entity_settings: true

all of the other settings are set by means of the entity boolean setting. No matter what I toggle there, it only changes the browser I am using the toggles in, and not another browser window (with a non_admin user logged in)

moreover, if I use the new:

entity_settings:

   - entity:
       binary_sensor.unhide_sidebar_for_non_admin: 'on'
     hide_sidebar: false

next to my existing:

  - entity:
      input_boolean.hide_sidebar: 'on'
    hide_sidebar: true

the complete kiosk made is fluked, and nothing works anymore at all! It breaks Kiosk mode.

so No, that is not the answer for now, we cant have 2 toggles set the same setting.... I might have to fiddle about with a binary_sensor, based on either of these toggles, or use the rephrased toggle (which I dont particularly like, because I want to have them have the same name as the setting they control)

Confess I never tested this before, so it might have been happening forever. Only found out now testing for this functionality for non-admins.

In all honesty, I don't feel it is the best way to have this done (if at all). Seems to me we should be able to have separate settings possible for the main groups, and not rely on overrides.

especially since I have everything showing in admin mode, so the sidebar is already showing (hide_sidebar: false), and that new option breaks that functionality.

[elchininet]

all of the other settings are set by means of the entity boolean setting. No matter what I toggle there, it only changes the browser I am using the toggles in, and not another browser window (with a non_admin user logged in)

Let me explain how the entities settings work:

- entity:
      input_boolean.hide_sidebar: 'on'
    hide_sidebar: true

The above means that when the input boolean is on, it sets the hide_sidebar in true, just that. It doesn‘t mean that if the input boolean is off it will set the hide_sidebar in false. So entities settings will override other conditional configs only when the value of the entity concides with the value that you added to the configuration.

I have a wall tablet with a non-admin user, the sidebar is hidden there, if from my computer I enabled an input boolean with this setting:

non_admin_settings:
  hide_sidebar: true
entity_settings:
  - entity:
       input_boolean.show_sidebar: 'on'
    hide_sidebar: false

The sidebar is shown in the tablet.

the complete kiosk made is fluked, and nothing works anymore at all! It breaks Kiosk mode.

I didn‘t have that into account, yes, that would be creating the same setting twice and that would bring issues.

In all honesty, I don't feel it is the best way to have this done (if at all). Seems to me we should be able to have separate settings possible for the main groups, and not rely on overrides.

It is the way that the options of the library have been implemented, and it was implemented in that way since the beginning it seems. It is a core functionality, it is not something that could be easily changed, having another way of managing the settings is alsmost creating another library with different options.

especially since I have everything showing in admin mode, so the sidebar is already showing (hide_sidebar: false), and that new option breaks that functionality.

Yes, you mainly want to create different configurations for different users instead of having a central configuration that is how the library was created. The only option is to have settings in the admin machine to show things, not to hide them, these options will not do anything in the admin machine (because everything is shown there), they will only override those accounts or type of users that have settings in place to hide things.

[Mariusthvdb]

still I dont get it. sorry.
I hve a toggle in place for all options, but lets focus on this one only.

using my regular entities toggle:

  - entity:
      input_boolean.hide_sidebar: 'on'
    hide_sidebar: true

I can do as I like, on all machines, but most importantly my own ;-) (this what I made this for tbh, I didnt think of other users). I want to be able to toggle those, for various reasons at various occasions. Mainly though, I show the sidebar on my admin machine. input_boolean.hide_sidebar: 'off' is default. Or in Kioskmode options: hide_sidebar: false is set.

Next, I have the non-admin users, I want to do the opposite. Mainly, Not show, but, on occasion, unhide the sidebar. If I now add that new toggle as you propose, it seems to conflict with my boolean above, as it also sees to hide_sidebar: . Whether that is off or on doesnt seem to matter, the fact I now have 2 booleans for the same config option breaks functionality.

My search therefor remains:
Have a toggle on the admin users to control hide sidebar at all times via that toggle, and hide_sidebar: false is default
Have a default hide_sidebar: true for non-admin users, but additionally have a toggle to unhide the sidebar for those non-admins.

Put differently:
we can not toggle settings individually for admin and non-admin users with the current toolset? (not even with some crafty figured out binary_sensor as entity)

....

Just for full reference: I have no admin settings whatsoever.. all I ever did was control the options via the entities settings.

[Mariusthvdb]

separate post for clarity.
I seem to have accomplished what I want, and I am not sure why, because I believe to have done this before. nevertheless please check if this is expected:

admin_settings:
#  ignore_mobile_settings: true
  hide_sidebar: false

non_admin_settings:
  hide_sidebar: true
  hide_menubutton: true
  hide_overflow: true
  hide_assistant: true
  hide_search: true
#   ignore_entity_settings: true

entity_settings:

  - entity:
      binary_sensor.unhide_sidebar_for_non_admin: 'on'
    hide_sidebar: false

# Hides only the sidebar. Disables swipe to open.
  - entity:
      input_boolean.hide_sidebar: 'on'
    hide_sidebar: true

with the above, I can control the sidebar on both by toggling the input_boolean.hide_sidebar, and the sidebar on the non-admin machine by toggling the entity setting the binary_sensor. (this could also have been an input_boolean toggle, but I had it made already so using it)

Maybe it is the order of things (controls) here and its the last toggle that is actually acted upon? Not sure tbh, but for now, I can have the defaults for both (and they are opposed), and control them via the interface.

I did already restart and refresh so hopefully it is not cache helping me out here ;-)

I just tested it without the admin settings completely and it still works....

[elchininet]

@Mariusthvdb,

Let me respond to this one because it seems that the previous comment is not valid anymore.

You can remove this setting:

admin_settings:
  hide_sidebar: false

It is the default value of all options in kiosk-mode, so it doesn‘t make any difference.

The rest is what I recommended you but you need to be aware that you will have an issue with that configuration because you have the same setting repeated in the entities. If you enable input_boolean.hide_sidebar then binary_sensor.unhide_sidebar_for_non_admin will not do anything because it will be overidden by the latest one.

But if you are aware of that, and just use the first setting without activating the second, it should work for your use case.

[Mariusthvdb]

I've recently experienced that this does cause some havoc after all.

When I have the sidebar hidden in the non-admin settings, and a non admin tries to slide it in (on the iOS app), the view gets a darker impact, as if something is going to change in the view, but it doesnt.
even worse, next it breaks the view, and can only be released by refreshing (pulling down) the view.

Seems an unexpected result of a hidden side bar. Shouldn't it simply not do anything? a bit like when eg pointer-action: none is set in card-mod? click what you want, simply nothing happening then. NO breaking the view, or darkening.

Dont think this has to do with my setting, though hope you can shed some light

[Mariusthvdb]

I may not have expressed myself properly. sorry.

I an aware there is no such thing as pointer-events there. What I meant was, that if one sets pointer-events: none, a hover simply does nothing, not even tries to do. I is simply ignored.

I would hope to reach the same effect on the slide gesture, when kiosk-mode sets hide_sidebar: true. Or I should say, reach a non-effect. Simply ignore the slide gesture completely.

As it stands, that Kiosk mode setting does hide the sidebar alright, but the slide gesture is still noticed by the app, and next the screen is frozen.

Maybe it's a bug in the app, maybe it could be prevented in Kiosk mode. Not sure. In any case the 2 do go well together...

it might be good to let the dev of the app know what Kiosk-mode does when setting hide_sidebar: true and maybe work something out together? what is the code applied by Kiosk mode to do so?

[elchininet]

Hi @Mariusthvdb,

You expressed well and properly before, and the answer that I gave you is still the same. Even if you remove completely the webview and all the HA elements, the App is still able to capture the touch events on the screen, it doesn‘t matter what we do or disable in the front-end, the App is not aware of that. It is a native App and it listens to your touch events to the phisical electronic screen, it doesn‘t listen for events that bubble from DOM elements in the WebView.

What happens is that we are hacking the system, we are hiding elements by CSS and the App and Home Assistant are not aware of that, if the App tries to open the sidebar and the sidebar is hidden by CSS is normal that something weird happens, and that is not a bug, it is just a clashing of two implementations that are not connected by any mean. We don‘t have control of the native App, our hacks end in the WebView and the elements CSS styles, and I doubt that they change something in the App just to support a plugin that is doing something that is not supported by Home Assistant.

Regards

[Mariusthvdb]

ok thanks, glad you at least understood what I meant ;-)

I see what you mean, and fear you are right.
wont hurt to ask though, as it is not a very uncommon thing among HA users. Either via Kiosk mode, other sidebar cards, or even card_mod alone, many people hide the sidebar. Heck, it even is a default cnfigraion option inside HA options itself!

must confess I havent checked whether that results in the same thing , or, how we can reset that if the option has become unavailable because of the sidebar being hidden.......?

otoh, we can still slide it in when that is enable, so it might not be the exact same thing.

[elchininet]

@Mariusthvdb,

It is always good to talk to the devs, even if we know in advance that they will not change anything in their side, they know their code, so they can give feedback about how to achieve the same hack in another way. Basically we are adding a display: none to ha-drawer > ha-sidebar, you can give this info to them so they can know what is happening.

must confess I havent checked whether that results in the same thing , or, how we can reset that if the option has become unavailable because of the sidebar being hidden.......?

otoh, we can still slide it in when that is enable, so it might not be the exact same thing.

Yes, it is not the same, what happens when you hide it from HA config is that the sidebar remains there just out of the screen, what kiosk-mode does is to take it out of the layout adding display: none.

[Mariusthvdb]

thanks,
consider a first step in Discord: https://discord.com/channels/330944238910963714/551871772484698112/1133733133829816412

[Mariusthvdb]

Ok so this is what Zac West says:

The app sends an external bus message to the front end to show the sidebar when you swipe on the screen edge. I’m not sure what you would need to change to make that work but it is entirely in the front end

Seems a Frontend thing after all?

[elchininet]

@Mariusthvdb,
So the front-end receives a messages and does something that he doesn‘t know because their work ends there, you would need to follow the breadcrumbs and ask front-end developers what the front-end app does when it receives that message, depending on that we can know if something can be done to prevent it.
Regards

[Mariusthvdb]

Please see https://discord.com/channels/330944238910963714/351047592588869643/1134592196251754537

Where I posted the above info and ask for possible suggestions.

[elchininet]

Perfect @Mariusthvdb, let‘s wait for their response. Also, if you can make a screencast of the issue it will help them to understand what happens.

[elchininet]

By the way, I found the commit in which it was implemented on IOS, and indeed, they only send an external bus message: https://github.com/home-assistant/iOS/pull/2328/files. But I cannot find the code in the front-end that receives that message.

[elchininet]

I have found it, they trigger another event, still not sure how to deal with that: https://github.com/home-assistant/frontend/blob/d3ba19b0e00de1de14b4a17b331210325de8614e/src/external_app/external_app_entrypoint.ts#L65

[elchininet]

Hi @Mariusthvdb,

This pull request contains something in which I have been working lately and it is related in some way to this discussion. Please, read the description of the pull request but you can also check the documentation in the branch.

Please, if you can test this gist and check if you can spot errors or unwanted issues it would be helpful.

Regards

[Mariusthvdb]

Nice! I will check asap.
great you keep updating and improving.

[Mariusthvdb]

would the template option allow me to do?

hide_sidebar: >
  {{not user_is_admin}}

[elchininet]

Yes, but if it is only a client side variable it would be faster doing it in JavaScript:

hide_sidebar: >
  [[[ !user_is_admin ]]]