Zabbix 3.0: The WebGUI: Why??

[otheus]

First of all, thank you again for all the hard work you've put into this excellent product/project. Now for the complaint...


I just upgraded from 2.2 to 3.0. About the GUI overhaul in 3. Why the fudge???? What was the point? Surely, the GUI needed updating. But the new GUI fixes almost nothing that was wrong with the old one, and breaks many things that were right. The "cleaner" more modern look is in my very strong opinion a step backwards: it feels like an attempt to copy the other dumbed-down UXs. Just because Google's UX design group goes "clean" doesn't mean it's the right or useful thing for everyone else.

FWIW: I understand if the new GUI reflects an underlying change to the CSS/PHPmechanics, but it should have been refactored without designing away the existing look-feel.

FWIW #2: I know I should be involved more and complain less, and I want to; but currently I must focus my energy on other battles.


Broken / bad changes:

• Table views no longer have vertical grid markers, which really helped to define empty columns and create "negative white space"
• Table rows no longer have alternating background shades. Thanks for making long rows harder to read! (Yeah, you can roll over them, but the point is, before, you didn't have to... a screen shot could make nice, easy-to-read reports.)
• Item filter no wtakes up most of the page. Gone is the succinct compactness it previously had. The subsections ("APPLICATIONS", "STATUS") are in the same font as the filters ("Disabled") but are in a smaller font, and grayish, making them hard to read. The number count by each filter item, again in gray, is confusing and distracting.
• No more breadcrumbs? I can understand why this behavior is thought to be outmoded, but it should at least be a UX option.
• Typically-bookmarked pages such as _dashboard.php_ really should have a redirect to their new page.
• Top-level hot-selection via rollover. This made sense to me and I thought was a big improvement in 1.6 or 1.8 or whenever. Was it a problem for peeps?

Good / useful changes: (from 2.2)

• Editing an itemFull itemid/hostid in URL. The session-specific stuff was obviously a fail. Sometimes it's really useful to edit multiple hosts' items side-by-side in different browser tabs, and the session-anchoring led to errors and misconfigurations.
• Table header rows and items are more compact and easier to read. However, a minor grudge: the selected sorting field will be of the exact same font and color as the data elements in the rows below.
• Able to jump directly to a hosts' main configuration page from one of its configuration sub-pages. I think this was missing in 2.2.
• Host view Filtering options.

Still not fixed, dammit!

See next post. Apparently I can't have so many lists in a post.

[otheus]

Still not fixed in 3.0

• Triggers When adding a dependency, the pop-up screen does not select the current (most recent?) host whose trigger is being modified. This is annoying as frak.
• Graphs Same problem as above. When adding an item, give us a pop-up screen with the current group/host selected.
• All tables Still can't change column widths. Not all columns should be resizable, but certainly some ought to be.
• Most screens "Create item" or "filter refinement" item way off to the right. This makes it hard to find things -- even for me (and I've been using this for 8 years!). For instance, Administration/General. It was years before I realized there were other options available. Newcomers to the product have a hard time (for some reason) finding or expecting the "new" button to be on the right side. I don't blame them all that much.
• Re-drawing graph When zooming in or changing graph, the display needs a "Rendering" popup/overlay, to let the user know the UI is actually busy doing something. I suggest a 300ms delay before popping up, and a dismiss button to let the user cancel the current operation.
• Graphing / Charting. 8 years ago, graphin in Zabbix was really awesome. But nothing has significantly improved since then. The zoom feature was the sole big improvement, iirc. Here's what I'd like to see:
  • A graph that charts the same thing, spanning multiple hosts. For instance, I want to compare ping times of all the hosts in a group (for instance, within a specific datacenter or rack).
  • A "quick view" of hosts' health with graphs. See checkmk or PRTG which easily show all selected hosts' "health" in a graph. Maybe let the user select up to 3 items per host to indicate its "health" (usually, pingtime, load, temperature). A host-view lets the user see a filtered view of hosts, one per row, and each row has one to three of these health charts. They will be small... too small for details, but as an overview, easy to indicate where a variance is occurring.
  • Centered Y axis and Inverted items. This is most useful for graphing network packets. Also useful for graphing CPU usage (stacked on one side, idle on the other) and memory usage (free vs swap).

[otheus]

The future of monitoring

accidental post. ignore.

[kloczek]

• A graph that charts the same thing, spanning multiple hosts. For instance, I want to compare ping times of all the hosts in a group (for instance, within a specific datacenter or rack).
• A "quick view" of hosts' health with graphs. See checkmk or PRTG which easily show all selected hosts' "health" in a graph. Maybe let the user select up to 3 items per host to indicate its "health" (usually, pingtime, load, temperature). A host-view lets the user see a filtered view of hosts, one per row, and each row has one to three of these health charts. They will be small... too small for details, but as an overview, easy to indicate where a variance is occurring.

But it works now!!! and this is available not only in 3.0 but it works in 2.4 as well
Go to latest data -> add in "Hosts" multiple hosts names or in "Hosts group" whole group name -> in filter add name of your ping metrics -> filter -> mark all items and go down to create graph.

[Alexei]

otheus, thanks for the great feedback! I'd like to assure you that we have absolutely no intention to copycat those modern UI which companies like Apple are proud of. I personally find their approach to UI confusing and anti-productive.

Also I'd like to note that the UI you see in Zabbix 3.0 is just our first attempt to make the interfaces cleaner (no waste like gradients, heavy UI elements, vertical/horizontal grids, etc) and, more importantly, easier to use. It's not perfect by all means, even more I see numerous ways of making it better.

Thanks for bringing up some serious usability problems, they need to be fixed asap.

[otheus]

I do like vertical grids. Maybe the way to do this is with slightly different background shading of individual cells. I find it sometimes hard to tell when, of instance, on a configuration page, the hostname is distinct from the detail in the cell next to it. The vertical grid lines in the past helped distinguish these. Now it's a tad difficult to see. A tad. Take it with a grain of salt.

Here's a small example:

[otheus]

But it works now!!! and this is available not only in 3.0 but it works in 2.4 as well
Go to latest data -> add in "Hosts" multiple hosts names or in "Hosts group" whole group name -> in filter add name of your ping metrics -> filter -> mark all items and go down to create graph.

BRILLIANT! Thanks so much !