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Y2T2: Contextual API

Much of the farmOS data model is built upon relationships among different types of records. Currently much of the farmOS UI is designed around each of these record types (assets/logs/plans). Plans intend to make it easier to manage related records together in one place for a specific use-case, but when viewing individual records (specifically assets/logs) it still may not be clear what higher-level purpose they have. Over time the addition of more custom & use-case specific features for farmOS will introduce many new high-level purposes for creating logs. Introducing a UI concept of "contextual information" (naming TBD) will make it easier to display & provide navigation for this information to users. Ideally this should help prevent someone from becoming "lost" in the farmOS data model.

Paul sketched some ideas for this early on in the initial 2.x development of farmOS but there were no immediate needs. Fast forward to now, more use-cases are popping up:

  • Restricted entry intervals (original motivation)
  • Planning features
  • Rothamsted related reseach entities (new motivation)
  • Product + inventory features
  • Sensor + data stream relations, data stream -> asset relations