[Feature Request] Filter in Overview

[HuntTheSun]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to ask if anyone would be interested in having an option to apply the "Dashboard Filter" to the Overview as well or having some similar feature in Overview?

If you are interested, here are my UX ideas for it, please tell me which one you would prefer or add your own:

1. In Settings/Overview, have "Apply Dashboard Filters in Overview", if checked, display and apply "Dashboard Filter" in overview
2. In the overview itself, have a toggle "Use Dashboard Filters", if toggled, display and apply "Dashboard Filter" in overview (maybe introduces stutters on toggle)
3. Make a whole independent "Overview Filter", not affecting/effected by "Dashboard Filter"
4. Have a filter setting menu/button for each project in overview

Would anyone be interested in this feature?
I would of course volunteer to implement it.

[HuntTheSun]

Hello everyone,

just to give this thread a little bump, here is roughly how I would envision it:

robot_dashboard_20260610-152536.html

UX Changes:

1. Settings -> Overview -> Apply global filter to Overview project bars (default False)
2. Filter Button is displayed even when in Overview
3. Filter applies in overview, hides any run not in filter, including its project bar if empty
   1. Also Filters "Select Version" Dropdown

What would be your gutfeeling on this feature and its tradeoffs in terms of scope/complexity?

If anyone wants to check out the WIP code (no PR yet, wanted to wait and see if this feature is wanted):
https://github.com/HuntTheSun/robotframework-dashboard/tree/pr/apply_filter_in_overview

[timdegroot1996]

Hi @HuntTheSun, this looks nice. I think this is something that we could ship and it at least provides some useful configuration for users.

A couple things that I think of when looking at the implementation:

1. Originally I didn't add the filters to the overview page because as it name suggests I wanted to have an actual "overview" without leaving stuff out. If you were to apply filters then it's not really an overview anymore. I recognize now that we were already straying away from that design since we added the version filter there.
2. I don't know if the setting Settings -> Overview -> Apply global filter to Overview project bars (default False) is actually required. If the filters show up and apply to the overview tab as well, we could simply always have them apply. I don't think it makes sense to not have them apply by default. Do you have a reason you would want to have this toggle?
3. Since we now have all filters apply to all sections, which is a nice clean solution, I think we can remove the version filter from the overview bars altogether. Since that exact filter is also present in the regular filters. What are your thoughts on this? PS: the only thing that we don't have yet is the regex like search bar that is present on the overview page. Maybe this would need some more thinking, this could be an improvement to the filter popup?
4. I think the sort filter should remain per bar, this makes the most sense I think.
5. The percentage dropdown is not that valuable per bar, I was thinking we could maybe also move that to the settings?

Curious to hear what you think and I really like your implementation thus far. I hadn't envisioned it yet but I like the way it works in your example and I think it can help streamline the dashboard some more. Great work!

[HuntTheSun]

Hi Tim!
Thanks for the quick answer!

Originally I didn't add the filters to the overview page because as it name suggests I wanted to have an actual "overview" without leaving stuff out. If you were to apply filters then it's not really an overview anymore. I recognize now that we were already straying away from that design since we added the version filter there.

Yeah, I had that in mind too, it's just that I have gotten the request again for that feature and I was thinking that asking isn't going to hurt. I could very much understand you not wanting to include this feature, it's your call after all.

I don't know if the setting Settings -> Overview -> Apply global filter to Overview project bars (default False) is actually required. If the filters show up and apply to the overview tab as well, we could simply always have them apply. I don't think it makes sense to not have them apply by default. Do you have a reason you would want to have this toggle?

I wanted to preserve existing behavior, if users want to filter the overview, they can choose to.
If you think its nicer to always apply it, I will do that.
What do you think about maybe a toggle in the overview (if you want to proceed with this feature) ? (It would probably take a bit of time to process upon toggle)

Since we now have all filters apply to all sections, which is a nice clean solution, I think we can remove the version filter from the overview bars altogether. Since that exact filter is also present in the regular filters. What are your thoughts on this? PS: the only thing that we don't have yet is the regex like search bar that is present on the overview page. Maybe this would need some more thinking, this could be an improvement to the filter popup?

I agree, when I wrote this issue I had #290 in mind when I wrote this feature, since the Filter Popup already has a nice UI with many good filter features implemented, I was thinking that a Overview Filter would be great once tags and versions are merged into customFilters.
I love the idea of a regex searchbar, what do you have in mind in terms of what it searches? aliases, customFilters, etc?

I think the sort filter should remain per bar, this makes the most sense I think.

I agree, nice feature by the way.

The percentage dropdown is not that valuable per bar, I was thinking we could maybe also move that to the settings?

I agree, I dont see the value either, settings seems like a good place.

---

With all those things kept in mind, is it alright if I go ahead and write a PR for it, or do you think its not worth the "costs"?
If I can go ahead and write a PR, should I wait? Do you have anything cooking that would be a pain to merge with that?

Thank you! ❤️

[timdegroot1996]

@HuntTheSun

Yeah, I had that in mind too, it's just that I have gotten the request again for that feature and I was thinking that asking isn't going to hurt. I could very much understand you not wanting to include this feature, it's your call after all.

You can start implementing this. I like this direction!

I wanted to preserve existing behavior, if users want to filter the overview, they can choose to.
If you think its nicer to always apply it, I will do that.

I think it's better to leave it out. If you don't select a value then it's the same as not using them, that should also simplifiy the logic required.

I agree, when I wrote this issue I had #290 in mind when I wrote this feature, since the Filter Popup already has a nice UI with many good filter features implemented, I was thinking that a Overview Filter would be great once tags and versions are merged into customFilters.
I love the idea of a regex searchbar, what do you have in mind in terms of what it searches? aliases, customFilters, etc?

Let's go for overview filters indeed. The solution you're working on is nice.
Regarding the searchbar I was thinking that it should be an extra option in the dropdown of all the version/tags/project name/ etc options. So you can have a "custom" value that matches any of them. For example in the dropdown with projects (runs): (custom, tests, testsuites, other), if you were to fill the custom bar with "tests" it would show both tests and testsuites. If you fill it with "e" it would show all 3.

I feel like this is a big change but maybe it's not too bad since this is logic already available for the version filter. We would just have to make it more generic for all possible filters where it can be useful (including custom filters) and embed it in the dropdown. OR alternatively, just put it in the modal separately, but I leave that up to you.

Separate I mean this:

Runs                             [ custom ]                    [ All ⬇️ ]

Where when you fill custom, it overrides "All" or the dropdown becomes greyed out or something.

A small heads up if you feel like going for the separate approach I think it's going to be a bit more tricky regarding the localstorage and filter profiles, as that will have to be handled separately.

Let me know if you require help!

With all those things kept in mind, is it alright if I go ahead and write a PR for it, or do you think its not worth the "costs"?
If I can go ahead and write a PR, should I wait? Do you have anything cooking that would be a pain to merge with that?

Yes please go ahead 👍! There's nothing in the pipeline that should be a limitation for you. The only PR open is the one for custom url widgets but I don't think there's any overlap.

Good luck 😄

[HuntTheSun]

Hi Tim,

sorry for the wait, this feature may take another 1-3 weeks, I'm not sure how much time I can spend on it.
I'm not sure if I understand the desired regex feature correctly.

Is this roughly what you envisioned?

• Added regex text input for each filter setting
• Disable checkbox if regex set for option
• added warning if no runs match filter

Is this roughly what you envisioned?

overview_filters_regex.html

[timdegroot1996]

@HuntTheSun, sorry for the late response.

You can take your time, we're in no rush 👍!

Regarding your question I reviewed the example and maybe I kind of overheated a little bit. I think it's rather user "unfriendly" since it becomes rather vague what is being filtered if you use this. On the overview I really liked this feature because the instant feedback gave you a clear idea of the results of your filtering. In the filter modal I don't think it's a good addition.

My current thoughts would be to remove it, what do you think? (sorry for the bad suggestion 😅)

I really liked what you did to the filter bar on the overview page by the way. Cleaning that up and moving that to the filters is exactly what I envisioned there!

Regarding everything else you can finish it up and create a PR whenever you feel ready!

[HuntTheSun]

Hi @timdegroot1996, no worries at all, I'm in no rush.

After testing it, it felt like a decent functionality to have, but the regex filter its very unsatisfying to use.
Maybe in the future, when phasing out version and tags and replacing them with customFilters features, it may be nice to have the filters use customFilter instead in the way versions can be filtered in Overview now, if it doesnt add too much overhead, but thats for another issue/PR.

I removed the regex filter inputs.
I have gone ahead and opened a draft PR for this #314

[HuntTheSun]

For anyone waiting on this feature and wants to try it out,
I have implemented it in https://github.com/HuntTheSun/robotframework-dashboard/tree/dev

(among some others, just checkout the commits up to what you are still interested in)