Hi,
I had some time to download and play with the latest release 2.0.0.M3 which have some major changes compared to predecessor 2.0 releases specially around introducing new UI and Color theme. Here are my preliminary observations so far:
1- It was not clear to me in the release notes the following sentence:
The new Apache NiFi UI is included and available at the /nf context path!
So It took me little while to figure out where are the new changes because everything looked the same using regular url ending /nifi (Example: https://localhost:8443/nifi ) before realizing oh its path change in the url which is https://localhost:8443/nf , but maybe that was me because I though initially its some configuration in one of conf files like nifi.properties.
2- Before figuring out the new url path (context) for the new UI, I was trying to figure out how to set the dark theme, initially I thought its the brush icon under the canvas Operate panel
It turns out its actually to set the color theme on the selected processor ( I knew that but forgot) so I set the processor to some color I picked.
After figuring out how to go to the new UI , finding the color theme is not that difficult because its under the main menu (top right with three stacked lines) you will find the Appearance sub menu item toward the bottom which you will find three options: Light , Dark & Device. I did not notice any difference between Light & Device which is I assume the standard default mode. I assume the device mode goes to whatever theme settings on them machine but Im not sure how that works under windows system.
3- One thing I noticed quickly under the new UI because I wanted to reset the color theme on the processor from the step above but I could not find the brush icon anywhere! I'm not sure if that was removed intentionally or its done differently but I could find it anywhere. Even for the notes which you would be able to see using right menu click but its no longer there as well.
It appears if you have some color theme applied to the processors or notes in the old UI you probably cant change that unless Im missing something.
4- In the UI I noticed when you hover over any control button wither in the Operate Panel or in the Component Tool bar there is no label showing up. I found this is strange and I hope this is a bug of some sort and those labels are not removed because they were helpful specially for beginners. I got the same result in chrome, edge and firefox
Old (Label is Showing)
New: (Label is not showing)
5- Under the new UI, I no longer find the Validate processor icon when viewing a given processor properties. Again Im not sure if it was moved to somewhere else or removed completely which I hope not because it was a good feature to have.
Old (Validation Option)
New (No Validation Option)
6 - Under the new UI, when listing queue content the whole page is changing to the list queue view vs showing that list as some sort of pop up with close (x) button as it works in the old UI. I guess that is fine and its matter of getting used to the new way, however what struck me is that there is no navigation option to go back! yes I can click the browser go back button or click the Nifi logo top left which will take me back but its not so intuitive and I would be concerned for clicking the browser Go Back button because this is not Nifi and we dont have control over what the browser can do.
7- For some reason the dark theme is not being applied when viewing the flowfile content as I was seeing this:
8- In the new version using the legacy UI if you want to call it , I noticed something new which Im not sure what it's used for yet , there is light bulb icon between the search and the home icon , when its clicked it brings panel to the right as the following:
This is not present under the new UI:
I hope this is getting covered some where in the manuals or one of the coming videos.
9- I can see some improvement in the new UI but I also see things that I'm not sure its a success, for example before under a given processor properties where there is a property to create a service you used to click on the property and you would see Create New Service as one of the options in the drop down , now you have to go to the three dots to the right (...) and click there to Create New service which is not intuitive in my opinion. Same thing if you want to go to configure the service where before it used to be a visible arrow , but now its under the (...). This applies also to managing flowfile in the list queue view , and managing the control service where instead of visible controls next to the service (enable, disable, delete..etc.) now everything is wrapped up under three dots (...) which means additional click.
New ( No option to create service in the dropdwon, click on ... to configure and create service) means additional clicks
Old: ( create service in the drop down and straight forward arrow to configure)
10 - I guess some of the color contrast can be worked on under the new UI ( light or dark) because its not as clear as in the legacy UI. For example when the parent group is showing number of modified sub groups for versioning, going from 0 to N the contrast of the icon in legacy stands out more to me:
Old (No Modified Sub groups) :
Old ( some modified sub groups)
Notice how the color of the icon changed form light to dark. However in the new UI
New ( No modifications )
New ( After modifications)
I think it went from lighter to darker (similar to legacy) so its not standing out, it should be reversed in my opinion where it goes from darker to lighter.
11- I'm going to end on a very positive note here. I think one major improvement is regarding python extension where under windows I no longer have to create the python venv bin folder manually every time new extension processor is added. Good Job guys and thank you for listening ( I guess this address the issue I raised here: https://community.cloudera.com/t5/Support-Questions/Uncommenting-python-config-in-nifi-properties-ma... ) . However I'm not sure if anything has changed in the python extension engine itself to elevate some of the issues specially with java objects that I was facing ( referred to here: https://community.cloudera.com/t5/Support-Questions/2-0-0-M1-Python-extension-issues-with-custom-pro... ) I need to do more testing to see if anything has changed. @pvillard I made some changes in github to the extension developer guide to highlight those issues and how to work around them which as you requested then checked in but I dont see those changes made it to the developer guide online for some reason. Also in the release note it talks about loading python extension through NAR for better security and performance but that is also not being mentioned int he same developer guide (https://nifi.apache.org/documentation/nifi-2.0.0-M1/html/python-developer-guide.html ). Im hoping that will be covered in the coming videos but its also important to modify the guide as well.
Overall looks great and its refreshing to see finally some UI changes even with some issues which I'm sure will be ironed out in future releases.
Thanks for reading and Sorry for keeping it long.
Looking forward for your feedback: @pvillard , @MattWho
S
