FreeNAS 11.2 new GUI suggestions and discussion thread

[Constantin]

Here is an additional suggestion to layer on top of the preceding one: Indicate such events in the reporting menu for CPU usage, temperatures, loads, etc.

Just add a simple dot under the timeline axis of whatever graph you're showing. You could color the dots to denote various types of events like system maintenance (scrubs, SMART tests, etc.) vs. more critical events like IGB0 down!, hard drive blew up!, etc. Or, just add the dots and then offer the information via hover-over. Coloring them based on the traffic light pattern used in the GUI is probably a good start (Green for scheduled events / cron jobs, yellow for unhappiness, red for major failures).

This representation would help visualize the cause of an event. If the UI ever adds hard drive temperature reporting / graphing (if this can be done for the CPU, why not the hard drives too?), users would likely be thankful for knowing that the spike they are seeing in hard drive temperatures was due to a SMART test or a scrub event.

 

[raidflex]

Where do you view the "disks" in the new UI? This is a storage OS so I would expect that to be in there even if the UI is not finished. Also I was playing with IOCAGE but trying to find how to mount a dataset in the new UI, this was a SIMPLE process with warden jails.

 

[Xelas]

BUG (minor): On my setup, the console view at the bottom is cutting off the bottom of the cards when I'm in the main dashboard. I can't scroll further down. It's like the console is over the top of the Dashboard section, instead of displacing it upwards. This is on Firefox:

 

[mcolinp]

**Disclaimer: I have not been following this thread, So I am not certain if this has been brought up specifically:

When viewing datasets; there is no visual structure to indicate child parent relationships as there is in the classic UI. AKA root volume dataset with sub datasets, etc. (Currently there is just a list of all datasets in the new UI.)

Another more minor foible of mine is that I find the color themes very distracting and unfreindly to look at. I know microsoft hypes up bright colored UI elements; but in the real world, medium & dark grey options are the easiest on the eyes.

-EDIT- Why not let the User use a color picker to set their own UI theme color?

 

[Jailer]

Another more minor foible of mine is that I find the color themes very distracting and unfreindly to look at.

That is part of the new UI that is still under development. @dlavigne has posted previously that the function of the new UI comes first and then they will polish it for final release.

 

[mcolinp]

That is part of the new UI that is still under development. @dlavigne has posted previously that the function of the new UI comes first and then they will polish it for final release.

Thanks Jailer,

I hope my feedback helps as they get closer. Also note that I'm not condemning the entire UI; just the choice of colors. The UI looks great actually.

 

[kdragon75]

Here is an additional suggestion to layer on top of the preceding one: Indicate such events in the reporting menu for CPU usage, temperatures, loads, etc.

Just add a simple dot under the timeline axis of whatever graph you're showing. You could color the dots to denote various types of events like system maintenance (scrubs, SMART tests, etc.) vs. more critical events like IGB0 down!, hard drive blew up!, etc. Or, just add the dots and then offer the information via hover-over. Coloring them based on the traffic light pattern used in the GUI is probably a good start (Green for scheduled events / cron jobs, yellow for unhappiness, red for major failures).

This representation would help visualize the cause of an event. If the UI ever adds hard drive temperature reporting / graphing (if this can be done for the CPU, why not the hard drives too?), users would likely be thankful for knowing that the spike they are seeing in hard drive temperatures was due to a SMART test or a scrub event.

This would be amazing! I know Veeam Backup and Replication does this on all of there performance charts and make it super easy to say "Wow things are slow, Oh my network usage spiked EXACTLY when the backup started, Ill throttle that down a bit!"

 

[Constantin]

...I know Veeam Backup and Replication does this on all of their performance charts and make it super easy to say "Wow things are slow, Oh my network usage spiked EXACTLY when the backup started, Ill throttle that down a bit!"

Seemed like a good idea... not surprised though that someone else thought of it before me. We humans are visually-oriented creatures, that's why throwing charts at folk is usually better than putting data in front of them. Then, anything that makes a chart more easily understood is an extra bonus.

 

[-fun-]

I also just tried the new UI (for the first time). It sure looks more modern. A lot of good ideas have been integrated. Also I expect to get rid of some problems with list / table widgets in Safari. But it sure wastes screen space like nothing I have seen before. In many places scrolling is required although everything would fit nicely into one screen. The Dashboard will only really be useful once I can freely configure and layout the contents. I do like the pfSense Dashboard for comparison. The "Items per page" setting should allow "all" IMO. There is serious loss of functionality like the navigable hierarchical list of storage / datasets: In the current UI I can expand / contract subtrees. All this is missing in the flat list of the new UI. The reporting feature is missing the feature to change the scales.

I urgently recommend not to release this version of the UI as a default without keeping the current UI as a fallback.

 

[-fun-]

I also just tried the new UI ...

Thank you Ericloewe for copying over my post here! My post apparently covers aspects already discussed here. That's because I was not aware of / following this discussion. I will now catch up.

 

[-fun-]

Ok. It seems I have hit and repeated the most prominent issues from the discussions. So no big news to you readers here apart from a "me too".

One word regarding themes: This is something I would not need. Just being able to change colors is not really "themes" IMO. BUT considering an environment with Integration / Maintenance / Test / Production installations being able to color code which is which seems very useful to me.

Thus having said please add "black". Thank you.

 

[-fun-]

I do like the window for the log output. This works better than in the old UI, especially scrolling.

Findings / suggestions:

• When scrolling the display automatically scrolls back to the end of the list -- independently from the state of the "Stop refresh" button. The display should stay where I scrolled to.
• I have 2 scroll bars in the popup window. The outer one should not be needed. The popup window should be fitted to the screen space so an additional scroll bar does not appear.
• A button could be considered to copy the complete log into the Clipboard.

 

[-fun-]

An additional feedback regarding lists with "Action" columns. I don't think this has been covered here already.

I understand that the three dots in a column are a clever way to allow access to arbitrary action options. However there are two standard actions which are far too common to have them hidden away in such a sub menu: Edit and Delete should be accessible directly using a push button / an Icon. Possibly a Clone (or "Copy" / "Duplicate") action should also be accessible directly.

Further options can then be integration into this additional "three dots submenu".

 

[-fun-]

I like the look of the list menu (the orange button turning and "spitting out" further buttons on click).

There is one problem with this menu in the Alert Service: The options displayed when pressing the list menu button have icons only, no text. Unfortunately these icons are not nearly as commonly known that they work for themselves. At least text is displayed on mouse over, but this is awkward.

Can text be displayed by default in addition to the icons?

In the Cloud Credentials list this is completely broken: The menu shows 3 identical icons for three different options. I assume this is a bug though?

Why is there no such list menu in the list of Snapshots? There is one very important action I do expect in this list: A Delete action to delete all marked Snapshots. This would require the ability to mark items in the list of course. This again might make a Mark All as well as an Unmark All action viable in the list menu for Snapshots (and other lists probably).

The filtering of Snapshots works fine and displays results immediately on typing, very good! (This was one of the most awkward problems of the old UI: The filter was difficult to define and was reset after deleting one item form the resulting list. Aw!)

Still a more advanced filtering of snapshots should be possible, especially regarding dates. Regular expressions would be great for filtering the names. Given the naming conventions of automatically created snapshots this would cover the filtering requirements for dates for most cases.

The list of Snapshots is missing a (sortable) date column btw. of when the snapshot was defined.

Snapshot names are cut off and not displayed in full (not even on mouse over) but I guess this is a know bug, isn't it?

 

[-fun-]

Feedback regarding the services card layout:

• All Services cards should fit into one screen.
• After opening one service option the way back is difficult: To get to the "Cancel" button scrolling is needed. If scrolling cannot be avoided after compacting the layout a Cancel button should be placed on top of the screen, possibly in addition to a Cancel button in the bottom. (A possible way back is using Browser back, but this should not be the only way.)
• The status "running" or "stopped" is completely redundant to the state indication with the toggle button: To the right and in yellow means running, to the left and not yellow is stopped. So just remove the status line. (It may be required for accessibility reasons though?). While yellow is working for me I rather recommend using more explicit state indication using a green light icon.
• A status "crashed" should be displayed much more prominently. I suggest to use a warning light icon for this.

 

[ThreeDee]

paste option in new UI shell?

 

[Chris Moore]

paste option in new UI shell?

What about it?

 

[ThreeDee]

I pull up the new UI in Firefox and Chrome and don't see it...? Is there one yet? or is it located elsewhere and I'm just not seeing it...?

 

[danb35]

I'm just not seeing it...?

Edit -> Paste?

 

[Chris Moore]

Edit -> Paste?

Worked for me, but maybe it isn't intuitive.