I appreciate all the work and the underlying core improvements implemented in core 188.
Very Nice!
I can’t say the same for the changes to the web user interface.
Why were the sort features of the connections list discarded? I found it very handy, and used it often.
The “refactored connections list” is not an improvement.
The services staus page is not an improvement. The ability to link directly to a service page (ie clicking dhcp to jump directly to the dhcp configuration page) has been removed. Removing features is the way the government “improves” things.
Less concerning, but still an annoyance, the status page buttons are now large and obtrusive. I much prefer the cleaner “Hour - Day - Week - Month - Year” layout of the pre 188 builds.
I really hope there are plans to address items 1 & 2. Number 3 is just my 2 cents.
One giant leap forward in the core software, one small step backward in WUI layout and usability.
That being said, thank you all so much for the hard, and overall great work!
My only issue with the service page is the large black field.
if it had a line every 3rd entry it would be eassier for the eye to fallow accross the page.
I agree with you on all three counts. I also used the sort feature on the connections list, the links in the services status page, and I find the new large buttons to be just space wasters and less professional-looking.
None of these are bugs. Someone decided that these are interface improvements, but the actual users don’t all agree. Why change something that is not essential or needs fixed when people have gotten used to and comfortable with the way it’s been for years? It’s irritating, IMO.
In this case, it appears to be a bug, which happens occasionally because developers are just people too.
Personally, I think the recent lick of paint to the WUI is welcome. Yes, there are some minor things to iron out, but overall it has been positively received.
Some of the graphs are now different sizes, and some of the graphs didn’t update automatically. But, at the end of the day, these are very small complaints, some of which have already been resolved.
There are some very good features in the pipeline which should be showcased in the next few releases. These are the priority right now.
In the meantime, if you see any obvious bugs, please report them—it will benefit everyone.
I was replying to @ampedforay 's three numbered points when saying “none of these are bugs” – The removal of the sort buttons in the Connections, the removal of the links in Services, and the style change on the status page buttons. They appear to be style choices, not unintentional mistakes. That’s why I didn’t think they were bugs.
since the update that changed the look of the CGI files a bit, I’ve been missing something in the…/cgi-bin/connections.cgi.
You can no longer sort the entries.
Previously, you could sort by Source&Dest IPs or Source&Dest Ports.
This was always very helpful when looking for something specific, and this list had over 1000 entries thanks to the running Tor node.
Is there an important reason why this function is now missing? Does no one miss it? Would it be very expensive to reintroduce it?
I had to rewrite the entire script really quick and so some functionality was dropped. I don’t think it is very valuable to sort by IP address as they are allocated randomly. I would rather consider a search useful to shorten the list.
I also used the connection sort frequently. For those that have static reservations on a network and a known set of clients, it was very useful to be able to quickly sort by IP and see if they had open connections and where they went.
I would also sort by port many times, again a quick way for some basic troubleshooting. Do I see connections to WAN on 53 for DNS? Do I need NTP on 123? SSH? etc. etc. It was a very handy feature and I really miss it.
This thread is about WUI changes, so mostly about ‘cosmetics’.
I’m also not lucky with all decisions, but I can accept them.
If there are deficiencies involved in the modificatuon, these should be reported here.
Because IPFire is a open source project, you are free to adapt the WUI to your preferences. IMO.
My only idea for that will be the “Find in page…” option in my browser. I wouldn’t learn how to write code in this life, so I have no choice but to hope that someone will address this topic at some point.
But thank you for this practical and honest answer from a coder’s point of view.
Edit:
btw.
I also noticed that “Wireguard” is now listed in the cgi of the connections and that it is also listed in the IPS system. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any VPN Wireguard settings.
Was an extension secretly announced here?
