How to Edit Dashboard in File Editor Home Assistant
Managing your Home Assistant dashboard is a crucial aspect of customizing your smart home experience. Whether you’re looking to rearrange widgets, change themes, or add new features, editing your dashboard can be a straightforward process. In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to edit your dashboard using the File Editor in Home Assistant.
Understanding the Dashboard Structure
Your Home Assistant dashboard is composed of various widgets that display information and control your smart home devices. Before diving into editing, it’s essential to understand the structure of your dashboard. Widgets are typically organized in rows and columns, and each widget has its own configuration file.
Widgets can range from simple temperature displays to complex scenes that control multiple devices. Familiarize yourself with the types of widgets available in Home Assistant and their functionalities.
Accessing the File Editor
Accessing the File Editor in Home Assistant is straightforward. Follow these steps:
- Open your Home Assistant interface.
- Click on the “Configuration” tab at the top of the screen.
- Select “File Editor” from the dropdown menu.
Once you’re in the File Editor, you’ll see a list of configuration files. The dashboard is typically stored in a file named “configuration.yaml”.
Locating the Dashboard Configuration
Within the “configuration.yaml” file, you’ll find the dashboard configuration. Look for a section that starts with “dashboards:” and contains a list of dashboards. Each dashboard is defined by a unique name and a list of widgets.
Here’s an example of what the dashboard configuration might look like:
dashboards: - name: "home" title: "Home Dashboard" rows: - height: 5 widgets: - entity: sensor.temperature type: "temperature" title: "Current Temperature" - entity: sensor.humidity type: "humidity" title: "Current Humidity"
In this example, the “home” dashboard has two widgets: a temperature display and a humidity display.
Editing Widgets
Now that you’ve located the dashboard configuration, you can start editing widgets. Here’s how to modify an existing widget or add a new one:
- Locate the widget you want to edit or add.
- Modify the widget’s configuration. For example, you can change the entity, type, or title.
- Save the changes to the “configuration.yaml” file.
Here’s an example of how to change the title of the temperature widget:
dashboards: - name: "home" title: "Home Dashboard" rows: - height: 5 widgets: - entity: sensor.temperature type: "temperature" title: "Room Temperature"
After making changes, restart Home Assistant for the updates to take effect.
Adding New Widgets
Adding new widgets to your dashboard is a simple process. Follow these steps:
- Open the “configuration.yaml” file in the File Editor.
- Locate the “dashboards:” section.
- Under the appropriate dashboard, add a new row and widget configuration.
- Save the changes and restart Home Assistant.
Here’s an example of adding a new widget to display the weather:
dashboards: - name: "home" title: "Home Dashboard" rows: - height: 5 widgets: - entity: sensor.temperature type: "temperature" title: "Room Temperature" - height: 5 widgets: - entity: weather.weather type: "weather" title: "Current Weather"
Customizing Widget Appearance
In addition to modifying widget functionality, you can also customize their appearance. Home Assistant supports various themes and styles that you can apply to your dashboard. To customize the appearance:
- Open the “configuration.yaml” file.
- Locate the “themes:” section.
- Define your custom theme or modify an existing one.
- Apply the theme to your dashboard by setting the “theme” property in the dashboard configuration.
Here’s an example