Complications ID is a 0-255 integer. How can that be unique?

In the complications documentation

https://developer.garmin.com/connect-iq/core-topics/complications/

It states that the complicaion id is:

`id`	Numerical identifier from 0 - 255. Keep this value stable across versions. Changing this value between versions will impact apps consuming your complication when your app updates.

How can that be unique?

What happens when the id clashes with another complication with the same id on a user's watch?

jim_m_58 over 1 year ago

It has to be unique on that publishing app. While it can be 0-255, an app can only publish 4 complications. I generally just use 0 to 3.

What it's used for is to tie your code to the xml for that contribution,

So in your code, you would have something like this:

Complications.updateComplication(1, {value => t+" "+tm});

with this in the xml:

        <complication id="1" access="public"
            longLabel="@Strings.longComp1"
            shortLabel="@Strings.shortComp1"
            icon="@Drawables.iconComp"
            glancePreview="false">
            <faceIt defaultText="@Strings.longComp1" />
        </complication>

In a subscriber, you don't use this id, but instead, look for COMPLICATION_TYPE_INVALID (as it's not a native complication), and then compare the shortLabel or longLable to see it's the one you are looking for.

See https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/discussion/353286/sample-of-ciq-complication-publisher-and-consumer-of-those-complications

The doc for complications is kind of confusing, and the SDK doesn't have samples, which is why I put together this simple sample. I have multiple publishers on the same watch, and they co-exist fine, where the complications can be used by both a CIQ watch face as well as FaceIt,

https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/f/discussion/352175/face-it-and-ciq-complications

trudelta over 1 year ago in reply to jim_m_58

Thanks. Very helpful.

trudelta over 1 year ago in reply to jim_m_58

The documentation seems to say that only apps can publish complications. I saw a thread about widgets not being able to publish complications. What about data fields?

jim_m_58 over 1 year ago in reply to trudelta

I'm pretty sure you can't publish in a data field.

trudelta over 1 year ago in reply to jim_m_58

Unless an application can run in the backround and publish updated values to subscribers (which I don't think is possible), then i think the uses for complications (at least custom Connect IQ ones) are quite limited. I was hoping for a bit more of a broader set of use cases.