Dashboard-blocks-example by tyeth · Pull Request #174 · adafruit/Adafruit_IO_Python

tyeth · 2026-03-06T19:58:12Z

@tyeth review this with fresh eyes. It's overly long, but effective, maybe a better comment header or something.

Copilot

Pull request overview

This PR rewrites the examples/basics/dashboard.py example to demonstrate creating a dashboard with every supported Adafruit IO block type via the REST API (previously only 3 block types were shown). It also makes minor documentation improvements to two weather example files.

Changes:

examples/basics/dashboard.py: Complete rewrite — feeds are bootstrapped, account limits are checked, one block of each visual type is created, and a responsive layout is applied.
examples/api/weather.py: Docstring updated from "Dark Sky Hyperlocal" to "Apple WeatherKit example" and an inline comment added to the receive_weather call.
examples/api/weather_create_delete.py: Docstring updated to note "IO Plus" requirement.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.

File	Description
`examples/basics/dashboard.py`	Full rewrite: feeds/data bootstrapping, limit checking, all-block-type creation, responsive layout
`examples/api/weather.py`	Docstring and inline comment update to reflect current weather provider
`examples/api/weather_create_delete.py`	Docstring updated to add "(IO Plus)" clarification

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Copilot · 2026-03-06T20:03:37Z

examples/basics/dashboard.py

+    if visual_type in ("line_chart", "stream", "map"):
+        feed_id = secondary_feed_id
+
+    group_id = primary_group_id
+    if visual_type in ("line_chart", "stream", "map"):


In make_block, the conditions on lines 401 and 405 hardcode the set ("line_chart", "stream", "map") for choosing between the primary and secondary feed, duplicating the information already in the module-level constant SECONDARY_FEED_BLOCK_TYPES. For consistency and easier maintenance, replace both inline tuple checks with if visual_type in SECONDARY_FEED_BLOCK_TYPES.

Suggested change

if visual_type in ("line_chart", "stream", "map"):

feed_id = secondary_feed_id

group_id = primary_group_id

if visual_type in ("line_chart", "stream", "map"):

if visual_type in SECONDARY_FEED_BLOCK_TYPES:

feed_id = secondary_feed_id

group_id = primary_group_id

if visual_type in SECONDARY_FEED_BLOCK_TYPES:

Copilot · 2026-03-06T20:03:38Z

examples/basics/dashboard.py

+            continue
+        if not is_numeric_value(raw_feed.get("last_value")):
+            continue
+        usable.append(aio.feeds(feed_key))


select_usable_feeds calls aio.feeds(feed_key) individually for every qualifying feed (line 369), resulting in one extra API request per feed. Since the raw feed data from get_all_feeds_raw already contains all the needed fields (name, key, id), constructing a Feed object from the raw dict directly (e.g. Feed.from_dict(raw_feed)) would avoid these extra requests and improve performance, especially for accounts with many feeds.

Suggested change

usable.append(aio.feeds(feed_key))

usable.append(Feed.from_dict(raw_feed))

Copilot · 2026-03-06T20:03:38Z

examples/basics/dashboard.py

+PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_USERNAME = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_USERNAME", "tyeth")
+PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_KEY = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_KEY", "2025-06-24-sliders-and-toggle")
+PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_NAME = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_NAME", "2025-06-24 sliders and toggle")


The default values for PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_USERNAME, PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_KEY, and PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_NAME are hardcoded to a specific personal account ("tyeth") and a specific dashboard ("2025-06-24-sliders-and-toggle"). When this example is run without setting the corresponding environment variables, it will silently reference a specific private user's dashboard. For a published example, the default should be an empty string (or clearly indicate an invalid placeholder) so users know they must set these values themselves.

Suggested change

PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_USERNAME = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_USERNAME", "tyeth")

PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_KEY = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_KEY", "2025-06-24-sliders-and-toggle")

PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_NAME = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_NAME", "2025-06-24 sliders and toggle")

PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_USERNAME = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_USERNAME", "")

PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_KEY = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_KEY", "")

PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_NAME = os.getenv("PUBLIC_DASHBOARD_NAME", "")

Copilot · 2026-03-06T20:03:38Z

examples/basics/dashboard.py

+    elif visual_type == "selector":
+        properties = {
+            "label": "Selector",
+            "min": "0",
+            "max": "100",
+            "step": "50",
+            "onText": "High",
+            "offText": "Low",
+            "onValue": "100",
+            "offValue": "0",
+        }


The selector visual type has a full properties definition here in make_block (lines 477–487), but "selector" is commented out of BLOCK_TYPES (line 61). This dead code branch for selector can never be reached and is confusing to readers. Either remove the elif visual_type == "selector" block or leave a short comment noting it is kept for reference alongside the commented-out BLOCK_TYPES entry.

Suggested change

elif visual_type == "selector":

properties = {

"label": "Selector",

"min": "0",

"max": "100",

"step": "50",

"onText": "High",

"offText": "Low",

"onValue": "100",

"offValue": "0",

}

Copilot · 2026-03-06T20:03:39Z

examples/basics/dashboard.py

+    feed_limit, feed_remaining = extract_feed_limits(user_info)
+    group_limit, group_remaining = extract_group_limits(user_info)
+    dashboard_limit, dashboard_remaining = extract_dashboard_limits(user_info)
+


log_account_limits_and_usage is a diagnostics/logging-only function, but it calls extract_feed_limits and extract_dashboard_limits which each raise a RuntimeError if neither limit nor remaining value can be parsed from the API response. An unexpected API response format would therefore abort main() before any feeds or dashboard are created. Consider wrapping these calls in a try/except inside log_account_limits_and_usage, or changing extract_feed_limits/extract_dashboard_limits to return (None, None) gracefully (like extract_group_limits already does) rather than raising.

Suggested change

feed_limit, feed_remaining = extract_feed_limits(user_info)

group_limit, group_remaining = extract_group_limits(user_info)

dashboard_limit, dashboard_remaining = extract_dashboard_limits(user_info)

# Default to unknown limits; fall back to current counts if parsing fails.

feed_limit = None

feed_remaining = None

dashboard_limit = None

dashboard_remaining = None

try:

feed_limit, feed_remaining = extract_feed_limits(user_info)

except Exception as error:

print(" Feeds limits unavailable ({0})".format(error))

group_limit, group_remaining = extract_group_limits(user_info)

try:

dashboard_limit, dashboard_remaining = extract_dashboard_limits(user_info)

except Exception as error:

print(" Dashboards limits unavailable ({0})".format(error))

Copilot · 2026-03-06T20:03:39Z

examples/basics/dashboard.py

+    if unbound_blocks:
+        raise RuntimeError(
+            "Feed association required for all widgets except divider, but these blocks "
+            "were created without linked feeds: {0}".format(
+                ", ".join(unbound_blocks)
+            )
+        )
+


At lines 752–764, a warning message is printed telling the user to "Attach feed '{key}' manually if needed", but immediately afterwards (lines 768–774) a RuntimeError is raised that aborts the script. The two messages are contradictory: the warning implies the script will continue, but the exception terminates execution. Either remove the warning and only raise the exception, or remove the exception and let the script continue with the warning (if missing feed associations are considered acceptable).

Suggested change

if unbound_blocks:

raise RuntimeError(

"Feed association required for all widgets except divider, but these blocks "

"were created without linked feeds: {0}".format(

", ".join(unbound_blocks)

)

)

tyeth added 2 commits February 27, 2026 13:36

Update headers and comemnts for weather examples

349895d

Update dashboard example to create all block types with linked feed

8eecb6f

tyeth self-assigned this Mar 6, 2026

tyeth requested a review from Copilot March 6, 2026 19:58

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of tyeth March 6, 2026 19:59 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Mar 6, 2026

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Dashboard-blocks-example#174

Dashboard-blocks-example#174
tyeth wants to merge 2 commits intomasterfrom
dashboard-blocks-example

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	usable.append(aio.feeds(feed_key))
	usable.append(Feed.from_dict(raw_feed))

-    feed_limit, feed_remaining = extract_feed_limits(user_info)
-    group_limit, group_remaining = extract_group_limits(user_info)
-    dashboard_limit, dashboard_remaining = extract_dashboard_limits(user_info)
+    # Default to unknown limits; fall back to current counts if parsing fails.
+    feed_limit = None
+    feed_remaining = None
+    dashboard_limit = None
+    dashboard_remaining = None
+    try:
+        feed_limit, feed_remaining = extract_feed_limits(user_info)
+    except Exception as error:
+        print("  Feeds      limits unavailable ({0})".format(error))
+    group_limit, group_remaining = extract_group_limits(user_info)
+    try:
+        dashboard_limit, dashboard_remaining = extract_dashboard_limits(user_info)
+    except Exception as error:
+        print("  Dashboards limits unavailable ({0})".format(error))

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