Host overview on hosts status click

Recently I have worked on extending host statuses from a plugin which made me to go back and forth to the host’s overview page to look over if some parameters have updated correctly.

this made me think that we could show the same properties table on status click in the hosts index page:

This may reduce the extra step of going to the overview page for each host, and save a lot of time!

At the moment we have a simple title tooltip, but it doesn’t show all of the host’s properties properly:
Selection_347

Let me know what do you think,
I opened a draft PR in Fixes #30566 - Host overview on status click by Ron-Lavi · Pull Request #7881 · theforeman/foreman · GitHub

2 Likes

This is quite an improvement! Few quick thoughts:

  1. could we move Power status from the main column into this tooltip too?
  2. should we limit this tooltip only to statuses and show other details on other column? e.g. OS info is already displayed in Operating system column and I’d expect additional related information in a tooltip of that column
  3. does this show on hover or do I have to click? can I copy the value by selecting text or second click hides the tooltip?
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Thanks @Ron_Lavi! looks really nice,

We currently work on the new host details page, so we can corporate together from optimization perspective and design.

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  1. could we move Power status from the main column into this tooltip too?
  2. should we limit this tooltip only to statuses and show other details on other column? e.g. OS info is already displayed in Operating system column and I’d expect additional related information in a tooltip of that column

I like the idea, what about this flow:

  • click on the host name url
  • the popover will open to the right
  • it will load interesting properties and data for the specific host
  • on the popover buttom, there will be a link “For more details click here…” which leads to the host details page, @amirfefer maybe we could also add a link to the experimental version there?

does this show on hover or do I have to click? can I copy the value by selecting text or second click hides the tooltip?

at first I wanted it to be only on hover,
but when the user will try to click on the links or actions of the table, the popover will disappear :frowning:
so I switched it to be clickable and the icon to have a pointer cursor, and when you click outside of the popover it will close - I think this behavior would be better :slight_smile:

I think a direct link must remain. An additional click to get to the details page is something I’d like to avoid. However, some button to show a summary is a good idea.

However, I do feel like there are so few things on the detail page that inlining it like this is a very real possibility. There are so many things the host list can do to make life easier. More powerful summaries and quicker access to details.

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Personally I never use this because I don’t have the capability, but moving it into a tooltip removes the ability to see at a quick glance what’s on and allows you to do bulk actions.

FWIW, I think it’s quite useful to visually filter all hosts by power status on first glance. I’d keep it in the main table.

+1

Yes, definitely. Navigating to a specific host detail page is already too much effort.

Alright, lets keep the link as is, and add an extra “show” (maybe an eye) icon or re-use the status icon as it’s implemented now.

and lets keep the Power status in its position?

What other reasons would make you go to the details page?
any thing else you would like to get a hover-view shortcut for?

Network info is missing. It just shows “the IP” but this is such a simplification for servers that have multiple networks. Plugins can also add tabs, like the Foreman Monitoring plugin adds a Monitoring tab. Others may do the same. Then there’s the further navigation, such as going to audits, facts and reports or view the ENC. Plugins can also add action buttons. Monitoring adds one to schedule downtime, though that’s also in the bulk actions.

Viewing reports, facts or audits might actually be interesting to implement as bulk actions. That way you can use the host list to filter the hosts and then get the list of reports based on your selection.

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Thanks, I wanted to see if there is another small feature we could add to that PR.
maybe at the bottom of that popover we could display the links you mentioned like: audits, facts, reports…

I see a lot of value in this. To be honest, the current host detail page is pretty useless. The main space is being used by the two graphics that nobody cares about. I believe a user just clicks the links to navigate further.

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Just thinking out loud: we have an Edit button on the right - does it make sense to add the autdits, facts and reports buttons there?

There is ongoing work on creating a new host detail page to address this (and other comments). In case you missed it, you can see @amirfefer’s demo of the initial experimental page (or try it yourself in nightlies), and give additional feedback in Host Details Page Redesign - Survey.

While I think a popup might be useful for a quick view of additional details that aren’t displayed on the table, I’d be weary of not recreating the whole details page again inside the popup. I would also recommend making sure that we aren’t duplicating the effort implementing two different solutions to a problem.

Another approach might be to finally implement the customizable table columns, so you could select which columns you care about so you will have that information available in the table without requiring to hover. From the survey, it seems many users (about 14%) are using the extra_columns plugins, despite the fact it’s hardly maintained and limited in it’s capabilities - which to me suggests it might be one possible solution if we implement it properly in Foreman core. If we do that, we’ll probably also be able to unify the hosts and content hosts pages, by allowing users to select which columns they want displayed.

2 Likes

Yes, I strongly believe that functionality should be part of core (and should have been for a long time).

I think we should keep the popover simple and pass the overview and links parts for now,
I don’t think it should replace the host details page where there is much more tabs info that shouldn’t be squashed into a popover.

Although it could be nice experience if in the future we will have a collapsible table and when clicking on a specific host, it will collapse and show the details section for that host.

I would suggest involving @Roxanne_Hoover if we want to redesign the table, and also look at what patterns are recommended in Patternfly 4.
It would be great to also get her feedback on the popover design.

good idea, I will ping her about the two topics and will update here :slight_smile: