Is this something you have already started?

and then wanted to ask you if you want to implement it

what you're really doing is adding and removing items. To me, this doesn't seem the right thing to do - it means that sitemaps will get messed up when I disable a channel.

I would like to propose that channels should have a flag to say they are disabled, and items should remain.

My chanel-type "temperature" holds an attribute pattern="Indoor temp [%.1f °C"]

how to change the chanel-type associated with the chanel ?

I don't think we need a flag - the "sign" whether a channel is enabled or not is actually the link to an item.

Let me try to explain this with a wider view: My vision for advanced (i.e. current openHAB 1) users is to have an editor which lists things with its channels left and items right and allows to easily drag channels onto items, which creates a link between them

Telling a channel to keep quiet ALTHOUGH it is linked to items is a completely different requirement to me and one that I didn't come across yet. Do you really see a need for this?

Wrt the simple view (your girlfriend): These people will be fine with the default items and will never have any other items and links to the same channel, so there is no problem. But this won't be enough for advanced users and especially, it would be very much incompatible to openHAB 1 and thus hinder the users to migrate.

a really cool use case for having multiple items linked to a channel

So yes, for now, I would say this line is just there where you want to link more than one item

You didn't comment on the question "Is there already a way to take a thing offline (ie for the user to force it to be offline)?"

the same functionality exists with the add/delete item...

which is actually adding/removing links, right?

I am myself not yet fully clear on how a UI could optimally look like

To point to the first topic of this thread, what is the current solution for using a device / thing with multiple switches?

		<channels>
			<channel id="switch-1" typeId="switch">
				<label>Switch 1</label>
			</channel>
			<channel id="switch-2" typeId="switch">
				<label>Switch 2</label>
			</channel>
		</channels>

What is the use case for set a thing offline if the device is online or to disable a channel / link to an item?

I would think that either at the channel, or thing level that there should be a way to temporarily disable the data stream without having to delete things/channels/items. Maybe the channel isn't the best place to do it, but I had thought that this is what enable/disable was there for.

Is there already a way to take a thing offline (ie for the user to force it to be offline)? If so, this would be a possible way to do this.

HI!!
The relay board has 8 outputs, and I want to label it with name of the device that is connected to output. (Example: Floor Lamp, Lamp, Washer Machine, Heater, ...)