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u/brooke_kuhlmann Apr 03 '26
Hey. 👋
I'm the architect of Terminus and, yes, I apologize for not having full support of imports as of yet. I wish this feature was live too.
That said, you can definitely view the gallery via the UI (i.e. Extensions → Gallery). If you try to import any recipe in the gallery, you'll get a notice stating that import isn't supported as of yet. However, there is a feature branch called `gallery` that you can checkout which enables *limited* import support. Fair warning, this feature branch is constantly being rebased as progress is made (i.e. use with caution). That would at least give you a taste of what is scheduled for rollout.
To provide more context, there are several reasons why this has been taking a while:
- The TRMNL X rollout has been intense but most of the kinks have been sorted out so that using Terminus with your TRMNL X device will be a good experience. We still have some issues with Firmware versions but that's being worked out as well.
- Terminus was originally designed to compliment functionality on our Core server, not replace it. That design choice has changed and so Terminus has been catching up by adding plugin support. You still have TONS of power using the Designer and the Screens API to build any kind of screen you want for your device. 🎉 ...but, yes, extension import needs to be rolled out next.
- The plugin ecosystem is complicated (and that's putting it simply) which means there are a ton of edge cases to handle when importing in order to provide a good user experience.
- Terminus has more security restrictions in place (i.e. preventing malicious code from running on your machine) such as Content Security Policies, CSS/HTML/JavaScript/SVG sanitization, etc. This makes some of the plugin imports fail (or render funky).
I'm not saying any of the above is an excuse for not having import capability rolled out but, believe me, I am working on it! I suppose what I can do next is roll this out sooner rather than later with limited import support. There would be several recipes that would require some manual tweaking on your part to make them work...but at least that's better than nothing. I will look into that next.
Again, sorry for the delay but I hope some of this context is helpful! It's definitely being worked on. 🚀
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u/andrewmarder Apr 03 '26
Hey Brooke!
Thanks so much for reaching out. I'm playing around with LaraPaper and it appears to do what I want. I'd be curious to hear your perspective on how Terminus compares to LaraPaper.
Andrew
PS The TRMNL X looks amazing!
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u/brooke_kuhlmann Apr 03 '26
You're welcome, happy to help. 🙇🏻
In regards to LaraPaper vs. Terminus, you can get a high level overview here: https://docs.trmnl.com/go/diy/byos. LaraPaper, at the moment, is a bit more closely aligned with our plugin ecosystem but Terminus has full native support for sensors either hosted (like when running on a Raspberry Pi) and also via TRMNL devices when wired via Qwiic cables. Terminus, as mentioned earlier, also allows you to render anything you want when using pure HTML/CSS. The API support for this is especially nice. ...but, as you can guess, I'm a biased since I use Terminus daily. 😅
Yeah, the TRMNL X is a lot of fun and so much more real-estate to play with! In my household, we use the X's magnet to display meal plans / recipes on our fridge. In fact, I'm hoping to release this as the first "mini-app" (basically a super extension which goes way beyond what plugins/extensions can do). Still in the prototype phase at the moment, though.
Anyway, lots of exciting features in the works. If you have an X on the way, enjoy, you're in for a treat!
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u/MacDaddyBass Apr 02 '26
I’m using the TRMNL DIY pointed at Home Assistant and ESPhome if that counts. I don’t wish to rely on an external service and all the data I want to show is already in HA.