Dokumentationsstruktur/en

Documentation about FHEM is spread among several sources.

Short overview as a first orientation:

FHEM

Some basic informations about FHEM and installation instructions.

If you run into trouble when using and configuring FHEM it is strictly recommended to have a look into the CommandRef. There you find detailed info about usage and options for all official modules and FHEM commands. Also this is the place where new functionality will be first documented directly by the module's author. The Commandref shall provide the necessary info about how to use

FHEM commands and options;
Device modules wrt. definition, configuration and usage. Device module typically means modules to integrate a piece of hardware;
Helper modules.

For all people contributing software to be officially distributed with FHEM (aka module author) there is just one strict rule: They have to provide a commandref (in english) for the module and support it for the first tree months. So commandref is the most important source for information about each module.

TIP: A lot of the module authors are not fluent in english, so in case you see room for improvement of the english version just provide a better version and contact the respectivemaintainer - he/she most likely will be happy about your contribution.

FHEMWiki

The page you are currently reading is part of the FHEMWiki. The link at the top left leads you to the main page. This is a good place to start. We apologize about most articles are in German, feel free to add or translate content also in English for others! Many articles you find in the FHEMWiki are directly maintained by module authors, a lot of them have just been written by other users. So accuracy and timeliness of the articles may vary.

TIP: There's a special section in our forum for proposals for improvement on the FHEMWiki.

Forum

Some module authors - especially of modules not (yet) distributed as part of FHEM - prefer to provide further info about the usage of these modules in the Forum. Helpful information about the Forum itself is provided in the pinned Threads in Anfängerbereich, we apologize about them beeing mostly in German. Feel free to ask any question also in English - either in the English part of the Forum or also in the regular section you find suitable for your specific interest. If you are able to read german, you may find a lot of useful information by using the hints for doing forum searches in the mentioned pinned threads.

TIP: We like to challenge people about first having used the searching possibilities before asking, as most problems have been discussed before - there are about 20.000 users in the forum - so there waits (at least one) solution on most topics to be discovered! But we understand it's not easy to even know the right keywords for searching if you are not speaking german.

Internet, Blogs usw.

Information provided in other sources - especially blogs - have to be challenge yourself whether this is at the right level of timeliness and quality. Keep in mind: Most of the respective bloggers aso. may follow their own agenda. This may be different to the FHEM community's.

TIP: So it's highly recommended to first double check that sort of information against the one provided by the community before asking questions on info sourced "elsewhere" in the forum.