c-band / gallery-card

A custom card for Home Assistant that will display images and/or videos from a folder in the style of a gallery.

Gallery Card

Custom card for Home Assistant's UI LoveLace which will display images and videos in the style of a gallery. Also supports displaying camera images.

This was developed for use alongside the component for Kuna cameras but should work with any images/videos, in theory.

New in v3.3 - support for folder sensor, sorting options, and misc fixes.

Images/Video sources

To display files from a folder, there are now three options when using v3.3+:

1. The files component, a separate integration you must install and configure.
2. Using a media source. Set up the media source per hass and ensure it appears in the media browser.
3. (new in v3.3) The folder component, similar to the files component but included in Home Assistant by default.

Pros/Cons

At present, the decision of which to use is up to you, but there are consequences. The files and folder components load the files from the server on the backend into a sensor. This means when Lovelace loads it is much faster to access files. However, you MUST store your files in the www directory, which means they are essentially publicly available to anyone who can access your HA URL. The media source component only retrieves files when you load the page, which means it appears slower to load. However, those files are protected by Home Assistant's authorization and not publicly available. Additionally, media source files are currently only sorted by file name, where files has more options for date and file size.

Installation

Now available in HACS, but follow the below to install manually. For more details, see Thomas Loven's Install Guide

1. Place the gallery-card.js file under your /config/www/ folder of Home Assistant (suggest - create a subdirectory for cards)
2. Add the card within the resources section (Config -> Lovelace Dashboards -> Resources) URL: /local/cards/gallery-card.js Type: Javascript Module
3. Add the gallery card to your Lovelace configuration. Use of the viual editor is preferred, but the below example is if using the code editor:

   type: 'custom:gallery-card'
   entities:
     - camera.front_door
     - sensor.gallery_images
     - 'media-source://media_source/videos/'
   menu_alignment: Responsive
   maximum_files: 10
   file_name_format: '%YYY_%m_%d_%H_%M_%S'
   caption_format: '%m/%d %H:%M %p'  
   

I recommend adding the card to a view set to Panel Mode for best results.

Configuration Variables

Whether using the editor or yaml, the following configurations can be used:

Name	Type	Default	Description
entities	string	Required	A list of entity_id of a files sensor, folder sensor, or camera entity, or the media source path (see below).
title	string	Optional	The name to show at the top of the card.
menu_alignment	string	Optional	Alignment of the menu (the small list of images/videos to view). Default is if not specified is Responsive (see below)
maximum_files	integer	Optional	The number of files to show. You may want to limit videos to make it perform better and to conserve bandwith. Used in combination with sort (using the config as above, the latest 10 for each entity by date will be shown)
maximum_files_per_entity	boolean	Optional	Whether the number of files counted are per Entity. If true, then the maximum files displayed will be up to maximum_files per entity ; if false then only maximum_files total will be displayed (camera entities are always included and count as 1 file). The default is true.
file_name_format	string	Optional	The format of the file names (see below). Used in combination with caption_format for the captions below the image/video.
caption_format	string	Optional	The format of the caption (see below). Used in combination with file_name_format.
caption_leading_zeros	boolean	Optional	Whether to include leading zeros in the caption month, day, and hours. The default is false.
slideshow_timer	integer	Optional	If present and greater than 0, will automatically advance the gallery after the provided number of seconds have passed.
parsed_date_sort	boolean	Optional	Whether to use the date parsed using file_name_format in order to sort the items. Use this to ensure sorting by date if the source is not properly sorted. The default is false.
reverse_sort	boolean	Optional	Whether to sort the items with the newest first. The default is true.
show_reload	boolean	Optional	Shows a reload link to allow manually triggering a reload of images/videos. The default is false.

Media Source

To add a media source, specify the path to the media source folder as an entity.
The format of a media source path should be: media-source://media_source/{your folders}/

Additionally, media source entities can have an additional option "recursive" to specify whether to load files only under this folder (the default, false) or from any subfolder under the folder specified. Example:

```
entities:
  - path: 'media-source://media_source/surveillance/Carport/'
    recursive: true 
```

Use caution if your folders are very deep (lots of subfolders) or wide (lots of folders/files) as you could overload the Home Assistant web service. If your UI loops between "Connection Lost" and reloading the page, try removing the recursive option or using a more direct folder path.

Menu Alignment

Available options for Menu Alignment are below:

Value	Description
Responsive	On wider views (e.g. landscape >= 600px) uses the Right alignment, on narrower views (e.g. portrait < 600px) the Bottom
Left	Always shows a vertical list on the left of the card.
Right	Always shows a vertical list on the right of the card (shown in the image above).
Top	Always shows a horizontal list on the top of the card.
Botom	Always shows a vertical list on the bottom of the card.
Hidden	Hides the list and only shows the larger image

Caption Configuration

The captions under the image/video is formatted using file_name_format, caption_format, and caption_leading_zeros. If either file_name_format or caption_format is ommitted, the raw filename is used.

The assumption is that the file name contains the date formatted such that it can be parsed and formatted for easier human consumption.
Use the following placeholders for the date components:

Placeholder	Description
%YYY	A 4 digit year, e.g. 2019
%m	The 2 digit month
%d	The 2 digit day
%H	The 2 digit hour
%M	The 2 digit minute
%S	The 2 digit seconds
%p	2 digits AM or PM (if included in caption_format, the output will be converted to 12 hour, if not the value will remain as the %H placeholder)

Example:

• file_name_format: "%YYY_%m_%d__%H_%M_%S-0400"
  • Assumes the file name is in the format 2019_06_19__20_00_00-0400
• caption_format: "%m/%d %H:%M %p"
  • Will parse the file name and return a date formatted as 6/19 8:00 PM
• caption_leading_zeros: true
  • Will parse the file name and return a date formatted as 06/19 08:00 PM

Credits

The files component largely taken from work done by @zsarnett in the slideshow card, from which other inspiration was also taken.