A combined button of property change and indicator

[yaccri]

I would like to have ONE button that will send commands and also display the status of that device. These are different properies, so a multi-state property change button will not help.
Currently I use THREE controls for every lamp:
- A property change button
- An indicator (or label that shows percentage in case of a dimmer)
- An image that encloses the button and the indicator.

It would save a LOT of time to have one button instead of three. It would also save some precious screen space.

Enhacement to the above: Building themes takes most of the time spent for building an application.
My real wish for making this part a lot easier is to:
Allow the user to define a 'combined button(s)' for each device type. Thus the user will be able to define a 'combined button' for on/off devices, for dimmers and for shutters. When designing a theme, drag and drop a device to a theme will create the combined button(s). Also allow dragging the combined button(s) across the theme.

Such an enhancement can cut the design time from many days to few hours!

If a Ginnie (or Scott) allows only one wish, that's what I would wish for.

[Richard Naninck]

I second that option. However I have this working a bit already using buttons with transparant holes in them where an indicator is placed. The indicator disappaers whenever the button is pressed (I think that was another feature request to have a layer option for indicators instead of only for images), but the indicator reappears when it's state changes. I use these buttons for source switching on my receiver, plasma and in many other occaisions. When my receiver is in standby and doesn't reply with status, the indicator would stay away since it doesn't change state, a task will refresh the indicator. So it kind of always works, but requires to setup buttons, indicators and tasks to get it all to work. Having a button that can do it all would be very nice.