Show instance detail as breadcrumb

Registered by Thai Tran

This blueprint has been superseded. See the newer blueprint "Breadcrumbs for Object Details (and lower levels)" for updated plans.

Today, when we click on the instances we can redirected to the instance details page. Doing so causes us to lose track of where we were previously. This requires us to navigate back to the instances page, and if paginated, requires us to page.

It would be much more user friendly if we can get the contents to show up in a dialog. Furthermore, we can use widgets that can help us manage space if that is an issue. And if all else fails, the user can still navigate to the page directly via the url.

Blueprint information

Status:
Complete
Approver:
None
Priority:
Undefined
Drafter:
Thai Tran
Direction:
Needs approval
Assignee:
None
Definition:
Superseded
Series goal:
None
Implementation:
Unknown
Milestone target:
None
Completed by
Thai Tran

Related branches

Sprints

Whiteboard

Mockup screen: https://bugs.launchpad.net/horizon/+bug/1311968/+attachment/4094949/+files/bp-instance-detail-modal.png

[lblanchard 4-23-2014] I completely agree that this gets to be a usability issue and that it's hard to get back to where you were previously as a user when jumping into a details page. A modal could definitely get a bit crowded, but I do like what you've done with the sections that can act as an accordion.

Another solution I thought of was the simply add a "Back To Previous" link for users to be able to get back to directly where they were. I added a bug a while ago on this and it was marked as a "wishlist" item:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/horizon/+bug/1100318

[tqtran 4-24-2014] Once we upgrade to Bootstrap v3, we can also take advantage of breadcrumbs to allow user to navigate. Something like: instances > instance detail. where user can click on the link to navigate back. This should also be a lot more mobile friendly than the modal approach.
http://getbootstrap.com/components/#breadcrumbs

[jcoufal 2014-04-24] Hi Tran, thank you very much for having a look into this issue. I completely agree with the last approach which you mentioned - I already proposed this type of breadcrumbs on the last OpenStack summit together with navigation changes. Breadcrumbs were just waiting on the new top bar and navigation reorganization (got merged at the end of Icehouse).

The idea is exactly how you described it. Once user enters some detail page or other view scoped deeper than the navigation can handle, then breadcrumbs should appear saying for example "Instances > Instance Detail".

Your proposal about modals is a bit concerning to me, because it is space limiting and I am expecting much more information to appear at those detail pages (mainly focused on monitoring). Therefore I am fully supporting the idea with fully embedded detail pages + breadcrumbs at the top. Furthermore, for consistency sake, I am intending to keep modals mainly for user actions - workflows, wizards, etc (such as create, update, etc). Like they are used in Horizon at the moment.

Bootstrap 3 is still blocked, but I am keeping advocating for it to get unblocked as soon as possible.

[lblanchard 4-29-14] +1 to the breadcrumb solution. Hopefully Bootstrap 3 issues can be resolved soon!

[tqtran 5-7-14] Changed the title to reflect this decision. keeping the URL the same so references to it doesn't break.

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Work Items

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