Discrepancies between old and new charts in cloud dashboards

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Problem/Question

I use netdata cloud for quite a long time and some of the more important metrics are collected in a few dashboards. Due to the number of charts I need to see at one time, all of them are shrunk to the smallest size and ordered in a two column view. Which fits fine in a pivoted 2560x1080 monitor.

I do not know when, but the charts that are being added to the dashboards changed from old layout to a new one, bottom left being the new one:

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The longer I think the angrier I get, but:

  • The adding of charts requires one to select a specific node and on top of that a specific chart from the node. I get what you are trying to do and it works perfectly well in a single node view/overview, but why would you permanently display a filter on a manually setup dashboard which is configured by a user to see very specific things. Why not have a cog icon along all the other icons, that makes the configuration bar appear. Or any other way that would not waste space on something that is only touched on setup/initial config.
  • What use is a chart with single node, when I can’t even see the node name? See bottom left chart. If that upper part no longer displays the node name, it is a waste of space with the three dots which can be moved into the bar underneath it, where all the icons are. If you select multiple nodes in a chart or even one, why not display the node names in that upper space?
  • I guess this is just an icon that tells you what “chart type” is being displayed? The scroll bar is confusing.
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  • There was also some spazzing out of the charts when in dashboard view, but it stopped and I can’t reproduce it again. For now.

But yeah, the gist of it is: Why is space wasted, which can and was used for actual graphs?

Relevant docs you followed/actions you took to solve the issue

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Environment/Browser/Agent’s version etc

Firefox 107
1.37.1

What I expected to happen

To not have space wasted?

2

Amazing feedback @Suika, getting some eyes on this so we can improve the experience ASAP.

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Hi @Suika ,

Thanks a lot for the feedback and at first sorry for any inconvenience any recent change on our charts as caused to your setup.

I do not know when, but the charts that are being added to the dashboards changed from old layout to a new one, bottom left being the new one:

We did a the release of the new Single Node view that now has the same working mechanism as the Overview, and so we started showing only composite charts everywhere. These are those with the added bar on top - calling composite chart definition bar (sample below)

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We kept retro-compatibility to not break old dashboards but all new additions are going to be with composite charts.

This was needed change to remove a blocking step and will allow us to keep pushing further improvements and new features across the Agent and Cloud.

The adding of charts requires one to select a specific node and on top of that a specific chart from the node. I get what you are trying to do and it works perfectly well in a single node view/overview, but why would you permanently display a filter on a manually setup dashboard which is configured by a user to see very specific things.

Not sure I totally follow, you’re mentioning the “pain” about this menu on the right-hand side on the screenshot below or something else?

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Why not have a cog icon along all the other icons, that makes the configuration bar appear. Or any other way that would not waste space on something that is only touched on setup/initial config.

There are plans to review and centralize some configurations/filters on charts. We weren’t thinking about removing the “definition bar” since the intent is for it work as easy-access bar to be used to quickly interact and change what you want on the chart but I get it that on custom dashboards there could be need to “hide” it. Will capture it as a suggestion.

What use is a chart with single node, when I can’t even see the node name? See bottom left chart. If that upper part no longer displays the node name, it is a waste of space with the three dots which can be moved into the bar underneath it, where all the icons are. If you select multiple nodes in a chart or even one, why not display the node names in that upper space?

This is an after effect of the composite chart introduction and since these can have multiple nodes it keeps the context name. We have plans to improving the custom dashboards UX/UI and for sure something on renaming these charts will be there, even if it is to allow users to name them.

the three dots which can be moved into the bar underneath it

This is for now the action bar over the element of the custom dashboard, same as for the label. Totally agree it is taking a lot of space and an element we will be reviewing.

I guess this is just an icon that tells you what “chart type” is being displayed? The scroll bar is confusing.

This is a bug that we are working to fix [Bug]: chart options not displaying correct anymore · Issue #686 · netdata/netdata-cloud · GitHub

Really great feedback and hope we can tackle some of it soon.

Cheers,
Hugo

4

Thanks.

Pain about the “Add Charts to X”? No, there is no pain in that. The only pain is the reduced graph space of the charts due to the filter being permanent right now. And maybe the chart (node) name.

I will probably stop here, as you already understood the gist of the problem(s) and it will be a waste of time to go back and forth when you already have plans regarding all that.

Tho, I will suggest one thing regarding the filter bar:
Since these are the dashboards that users configure themselves of the things they want to see. Instead of maybe giving each chart a cog that would show/hide the filter bar, why not place a single button/checkbox along the "Add Chart"|"Add Text"|"Pin" buttons, that would show/hide the filter bar for all charts?

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That way the Charts are not some custom code, but rather default chart where the “show/hide the filter bar” button/checkbox just sets something like display: none; on the filter bar.

PS: Who allowed such horrors to exist? (This is first row, there is no user/chart offset)>image

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Thanks for clarifying and giving some additional feedback

Since these are the dashboards that users configure themselves of the things they want to see. Instead of maybe giving each chart a cog that would show/hide the filter bar, why not place a single button/checkbox along the "Add Chart"|"Add Text"|"Pin" buttons, that would show/hide the filter bar for all charts?

This can make sense your approach is kind of hinting to distinguish between “View” and “Edit” modes. If we added a button saying “Edit” to enter in edit mode we would show full chart bars for configuration.

We need to consider it on our planning of what we want to do. There could also be cases where people would like to have the quick definition bar available on one or more charts to easily switch contexts, without the need to go into an edit mode - even on these custom dashboards.