Watchfaces for all the available complications

Your app can iterate through all complications using Complications.getComplications(), to provide the user with a list to select from. Your watchface would still have to subscribe to individual complications (as opposed to all complications), but I think this is ok because no watchface would automatically display all complications at the same time anyway - the user would typically select the complications they want to see [*].

Obviously this is only possible for on-device settings (or the new WatchFaceConfig feature where CIQ can access the native watchface settings UI), not the classic app settings in the Connect phone app or Garmin Express. Settings on the device can be dynamic, settings in Connect / Garmin Express are fixed at compile time.

[*] if you really wanted to create a watchface with a field that automatically displays all complications (by cycling through them automatically), you could do this too. But obviously this would be a very unique use case.

And finding those published by CIQ are a bit different, as you look for COMPLICATION_TYPE_INVALD and then display the short or long name if you want the user to pick

I will also say that some devs do have a way to select an arbitrary (3rd-party) complication in Connect / Garmin Express settings — they let you type the name of the complication (i.e. Complication.longLabel). (I’ve seen one app that uses longLabel, but I imagine one could also match on Complication.shortLabel).

Some obvious limitations of this approach:

- if two 3rd-party complications happen to have the same names (both short and long), it won’t be practical to disambiguate them. (then again, the list approach on the device won’t be much better — you’d see the same name twice in the list, with no good way to tell the difference)

- it won’t help you if the user wants to select a new native complication that was implemented after your app was built, unless you give users a way to type in the integer ID of a complication (which would be not-so-user friendly for them.) EDIT: either that or the user somehow knows the long name of the new native complication. A dev could find out the name of any new complication and update the documentation for users, without changing the app.

I wanted to ask—are there already watch faces available that support unknown or custom complications out of the box?

I specifically don't want to create or modify a watch face every time an interesting new complication appears. In fact, avoiding this scenario seems to me precisely the reason complications specifications exist in the first place.

jim_m_58 said:

And finding those published by CIQ are a bit different, as you look for COMPLICATION_TYPE_INVALD and then display the short or long name if you want the user to pick

It doesn't *have* to be different, or to work exactly as you imply (which is that Complication.shortLabel or longLabel would only be used for CIQ complications).

An app could display the short or long name for *all* complications. For 3rd party complications, the app could show the icon that was set during publishing and returned by Complication.getIcon().

But I don't see any show-stopper reason why both native and CIQ complications couldn't be handled generically, when it comes to displaying the name (either on the watchface itself, or in settings, when the user selects the complication). Only thing I can think of that for native complications, the dev would be able to list them a nicer way if the actual type is taken into account. e.g.:

- with a more descriptive name, assuming the longLabel isn't good enough. (but then again real estate on the watch itself is limited, and one would hope that longLabel would be good enough)

- with a nice icon (like heart icon for HR, footstep icon for steps). This is probably a decent argument for treating native complications differently

So one approach for allowing the user to select a complication could be to display:

- complication icon: for CIQ complications, use the icon returned by Complication.getIcon(). For native complications, getIcon() will return null, so in this case the dev would have to hardcode the icon. (They would have to do so anyway, assuming they display an icon for the complication on the watchface itself)

- complication name: display either Complication.shortLabel or Complication.longLabel, depending on how much real estate you have

If the dev doesn't want to show the user an icon while selecting a complication, the code could be identical for both native and CIQ complications.

It's just too bad that Complication.getIcon() doesn't also work for native complications. Seems like that would be very useful for both configuring and displaying complications.

Thanks—that's something, even if a bit cumbersome. I'm honestly surprised there's no better support for this yet.

Ondrej said:

I'm honestly surprised there's no better support for this yet.

Like I said, I think the best approach would be allow the user to select complications either with on-device settings or the new WatchFaceConfig (native watchface settings in CIQ). In either of those cases you should be able to let the user directly choose from all available complications.

That approach would not be possible with Connect / Garmin Express settings as those settings are static.

Actually, if you use FaceIt (it's available in the CIQ Mobile app), you can see all CIQ publishers.

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

With this watch face and my WU or OWM apps installed, in settings I provide an option for the weather source with the default being Garmin Weather..

https://apps.garmin.com/apps/c051f37a-8fad-4907-b124-0112fe010c91

@jim_m_58, @FlowState currently this is supported in:

- Crystal-Tesla
- Garmin FaceIt

Do you know about any other?