Feature request: Persist columns settings

[gaetancollaud]

I usually have to change the column settings. And I'm annoyed that I have to reconfigure them all the time.

Would it be possible to store them in the local storage so at least it's stored in the browser and when I navigate I always have the same columns displayed.

The settings should be applied to all topics.

I'm happy to help with the implementation.

[weeco]

Yes makes sense to have this functionality. Commonly we have the discussion whether this should be stored per topic or across all topics globally. I guess this could be different from user to user. But maybe you can shed some light onto what changes you apply to the columns?

cc @jvorcak

[gaetancollaud]

For a particular use case I always want to check the partition and offset. I agree that this is not common.

I also like to have a relative time instead of the local time.

For me, it's not useful to have this stored per topic. It would on the contrary be annoying still since I would like to have this config on multiple topics.

What about having a "default columns settings" config somewhere in the "user preferences" modal? Could be a new tab.

[jvorcak]

@gaetancollaud thanks for the input.

What version of Console are you using? In the recent versions we’ve implemented the following:

Sorting is taken from the URL params, which lets users save different configurations externally by bookmarking or sharing the URL.

When sorting changes, we also store it as a default in per-topic local storage. When the user navigates to a topic, the URL params are then restored from this local storage.

I think users differ on whether they prefer a global or per-topic setting. A “default columns settings” section in user preferences might be tricky from a UX perspective. What do you think about keeping the current behavior (remembering sorting after the user changes it) and adding a simple setting that lets users choose whether sorting should persist per topic or globally across all topics? WDYT @weeco ?

[weeco]

Yes seems reasonable to me. May be tricky to make the URL parameters play well together with the global settings, but if you have an idea, let's do it.

[gaetancollaud]

Thanks for the answer @jvorcak I'm using multiple versions actually. But I saw that the settings are stored by topic. But I'm a kafka operator, I change topics all the time. And I have my preferences.

What do you think about keeping the current behavior (remembering sorting after the user changes it) and adding a simple setting that lets users choose whether sorting should persist per topic or globally across all topics?

For me this would be fine. I don't really care where the settings are located in the UI as soon as I can have them saved globally.

[jvorcak]

@gaetancollaud let me discuss this further this week and I'll follow up on how and when we will be able to implement this. I'll follow up here, I just wanted to give an update it's on my TODO list.

[jvorcak]

@gaetancollaud we will try to implement a user setting as discussed above, user will then choose whether these settings are auto-saved per-topic or globally. I can't give you the timeframe yet, but I'll try to implement as soon as I have some free time slot for this.