vmui: Enable customizing Query & Overview default parameters

[jinnatar]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

If I pull up VictoriaLogs for example on a mobile phone browser to troubleshoot an issue on the road, the experience I get is completely driven by the defaults set for vmui. There seem to be no server side settings or even UI side browser-stored settings that would allow defining what that default experience should be.

Ergo, given no bookmark to fall back on, the defaults I get are painful:

• I will get deposited at / and need to manually select the vmui link for querying. (This I can work around with a loadbalancer redirect rule to just forward / to /select/vmui)
• In Query view, the current default is to group by none. I enjoyed the previous default of grouping by _stream but since that was changed in vmui: make hit chart non-grouped by default #1086, I now get no useful grouping by default. So I set grouping to _stream manually.
• I realize I actually need Overview instead and switch there. Grouping is not preserved and I yet again get hit in the face with the defaults that I cannot change.

For Query & Overview defaults I cannot even override them at the loadbalancer since they are passed as url # fragments and thus not given to the lb.

Describe the solution you'd like

A mechanism to define defaults for at least some of the subjective UI choices so that I can give a good default experience to any user and browser session that hits vmui. This could for example be in the form of cli arguments or environment variables.

Important at least for me would be:

1. If the site root should be redirected to vmui or stay as the "useful endpoints" default list
2. Group by, grouping count & stacking
3. Log line limit

Describe alternatives you've considered

• Overriding default entrypoints to vmui only works for a single redirect from the top level to one of Query or Overview, but applicable url parameters are not carried over to the other which means the "configured" defaults are lost on navigation between the two.
• An easier implementation could be using the browser storage side config UI to set defaults, but this relies on browser state surviving and requires every separate session to set preferred defaults.
• Persisting parameters in browser storage automatically real time as changed by the user could provide for a decent user experience, or a very confusing one when different sessions on different devices diverge.

Additional information

No response

[hagen1778]

A mechanism to define defaults for at least some of the subjective UI choices so that I can give a good default experience to any user and browser session that hits vmui.

I think this mechanism already exists. vmui reflects user's choices in URL. The URL can be persisted in a form of a hyperlink, attached to SOP document, a bookmark, alert summary, etc. It is up to user how to form a link and what settings to include. Such a link will work uniformly for all users who will click on it.

The alternative approach is to create a config file with settings, but this way has its own drawbacks:

• vlselect has to be provisioned with the config
• complexity of choices within UI should be reflected in the config, which could become less and less transparent with time

Overriding default entrypoints to vmui only works for a single redirect from the top level to one of Query or Overview

I think this one is actionable point here. @Loori-R do you think we can transfer Hits chart setting between tabs on user clicks?

If the site root should be redirected to vmui or stay as the "useful endpoints" default list

It already has this page:

Probably, it is loadbalancer settings that prevent you from seeing this page.

[Loori-R]

I think this one is actionable point here. @Loori-R do you think we can transfer Hits chart setting between tabs on user clicks?

@hagen1778 Yes, we can preserve the Hits chart settings when switching between Query and Overview.

[jinnatar]

Parameter transfer definitely helps. URL based settings storage sort of works in desktop centric workflows where it's also easier to change all the settings. It's the smartphone screen sized workflows that fall apart due to small details. For example the timeframe is also added to the parameters and it's difficult on a small device to edit that out to create a generic URL with only the settings saved. One workaround could be adding somewhere a button to copy all the current "settings" like arguments without temporals. Or a "share" link generator that allows choosing whether the time range is included.

[hagen1778]

Or a "share" link generator that allows choosing whether the time range is included.

I like the idea of "share" link. We will discuss it next week on the sync and I will report back in this ticket on decision.