Add looks, blocks and layouts from the library

Follow these steps in your own Denframe. This website never connects to your household, your accounts or your devices, and never asks for your credentials.

1. 1

   Open your library

   In Studio, open Library. It opens on Your library: everything Denframe includes and everything you have added, one shelf per kind: Layouts, Looks, Blocks, Activities and Backgrounds. Each shelf shows its first four cards; See all shows the rest.

   Use Search the library to find an item by its name, mood or the source it reads. The kind chips (Everything, Layouts, Looks, Blocks, Activities, Backgrounds) narrow the shelves to one kind, and the Show list beside the search narrows them by state: In use shows what your dashboards already use, Updates what has a newer release, and Included with Denframe, Added from the Library or a file, Shared from your dashboards and Shared with you say where each item came from. It lists only the states some item is in.

   Each card says what it needs from your sources: a tick when you have that source, and the source’s name to set up when you don’t.

2. 2

   Get more from the Denframe Library

   Open Get more. Denframe never looks at the online Denframe Library by itself: choose Check the Denframe Library the first time, and Check again later. It sends nothing about your home.

   After a check, Layouts that use what you have set up lists layouts that read sources you already have, then the Denframe Library’s collections, then everything you don’t have yet. The same search and kind chips narrow the listing.

   Open an item and choose Get. Denframe downloads it, checks its signature and adds it to your library; Cancel stops it. Where the listing offers a file, Download the file saves it instead. An item that needs a newer Denframe says so and offers See what it needs.

   Nothing updates by itself. The items included with Denframe change with the Denframe build, and an update to an item you use is offered on its page for you to apply.

3. 3

   Add an item from this website

   An item’s page in the Denframe Library has an Add to my Denframe button. The first time, it asks for the address you open Denframe at and keeps it in this browser only. It then opens that item’s page in your own Denframe’s Library, where you choose Get. If you are signed out, you sign in first and land on the item. Only the household’s owner can add to the library.

   The link carries the item’s id and nothing else, and this website never contacts your Denframe. Some browsers ask before a public website opens an address on your home network: allow it, or add the item by its id.

   Denframe in Home Assistant and the desktop app can’t be reached by a link. On the item’s page, choose Copy id. Then in Denframe, open Library, then Get more, and under Add by id paste it into Item id and choose Find.

4. 4

   Import a file

   A .denframepack from someone else, or one downloaded here for a Denframe without that item, is added from the Library. Choose Import a file, or drop the file anywhere on the Library tab.

   Denframe checks the file before anything is added. It shows the item’s picture, whether it is signed, what it needs that your Denframe lacks, and what it would read from your sources. Choose Add to library to put it on its shelf. A layout also offers Add and make a dashboard.

   An unsigned file says “Not signed”: add it only if you trust where it came from. A file’s publisher name is a declaration, not a verified identity.

   This website never connects to your household, scans your network or receives your credentials. A design file holds settings and what it reads, not the sample readings in its pictures. An activity holds its authored text and declared media. Your dashboards work without this website.

5. 5

   Look at it with your own sources

   Open an item from its shelf. Its page draws it on a screen With your sources, the way one of your screens would show it, or as the Example it ships with. Switch between TV 16:9 and Portrait to see both shapes.

   What it shows, from your sources lists each source it reads. Where one is missing, Set up followed by the source’s name opens that source’s page; afterwards, Back returns you to the item.

6. 6

   Put it on a dashboard

   The item’s page leads with what its kind does:

   • A layout: New dashboard from this, or Use on a dashboard I have… to Add its blocks beside what is there or Replace all its blocks.
   • A look: Use this look on… one dashboard or several, to Apply the look. Blocks stay where they are; how they look changes.
   • A block: Add to a dashboard…, then Add it beside the others, or Replace one block of the same kind; the replacement keeps that block’s source.
   • A background: Use as background…, or Put on a dashboard… for a picture block’s pictures.

   Choose the dashboard under Which dashboard? and choose Continue. On the next step, After and Before show the dashboard both ways. Your own sources are bound as the editor would bind them. Choose Save to and the dashboard’s name, or Create dashboard for a new one.

   Saving is an ordinary change to the dashboard: Undo is right there, and the editor’s undo and history have it too. Then choose Show it on a screen, or Open in the editor.

   In the editor itself, + Add a block offers your library’s blocks beside the plain kinds, and Browse the library → opens the Library.

7. 7

   Share your own (optional)

   In the editor, the dashboard’s menu has Save to library…. It saves the whole dashboard, its look or one block as a library item under Yours, and offers a file you can give to someone. Denframe shows what the file leaves out before you save. Share to the library covers it in full.

   Making designs by hand? The portable format reference describes looks, blocks, layouts and activities. Made something others would like? Submit an asset checks your file in this browser and opens a public review issue; nothing is uploaded until you attach the file yourself.

8. 8

   Check it worked

   Open the dashboard: the look, block or layout is on it. Back in Library, the item’s card is marked In use, and its page lists the dashboard under In use. Choosing In use in the Show list shows it with everything else your dashboards use.