A few suggestions - hope they haven't already been covered :)
First off, I was thinking that the 'tags' feature is a little harsh on the user. While it's true that the 'Query' box is versatile, it isn't particularly intuitive, in that;
A) You have to know the name of the group you want
-and-
B) Spelling errors can result in either inadvertently selecting or not selected devices by accident.
I was thinking of perhaps a 'tick-box tree-view' mode instead, where each parent tag would be listed [Site 1], perhaps with 'sub-tags' [Core Switches], [Edge Switches], [Wireless APs] listed as children of the parent tag - e.g.;
-[Site 1]
|-[Core Switches]
|-[Edge Switches]
|-[Wireless APs]
This way the user could select which tags they would like to use, in a structured and error-free way.
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Next up, how about a 'summary' or 'description' column in the device list, where the user can add a short note about the device (e.g. No UPS, Located somewhere in my leaky garden shed beneath my lawnmower, etc).
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The "hide big blue toolbar on the left hand side" button is incredibly small, and took me almost four weeks to notice it (maybe my eyesight?). Perhaps putting an [X] in the top right of the blue bar will make it easier for people to see how to hide it.
I presume that at some point this bar will become customisable too?
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I'm quite often asked to change port settings on a switchport for a device, but given no useful information apart from the device's MAC address.
I use the MAC to locate the device using;
show mac-address-table address 0000.0000.0000
-and then-
show cdp neighbour (IOS)
-Or-
Show cam 00-00-00-00-00-00 (CatOS)
While ducking in and out of every switch between here and Azerbaijan, just to locate a bloody switch port is a great time waster, it is also about as much fun as playing the original 'Pong' against a long dead sloth, nailed to a tree on the moon.
Basically, a plugin where you type in an end devices MAC address, the address of a switch and the program scurries off through CDP and high waters to tell me -=BING=-, the switch and switchport the device is on.
Perhaps this would be more of a project for the ZipForge gang, but I'd like to mention that if anybody actually manages to create this plugin, then I... am your bitch.
Awesome suggestions jj_daly.
Awesome suggestions jj_daly. We need more of this type of thing.
Just to let you know, we're working on our new release ("Nemo") right now. It is due out in Beta in a couple weeks. Here is the short of what's in that release: http://docs.ziptie.org/doku.php?id=dev:cassini
So your request to find a switch port should be covered.
I know we were toying with letting the user pick which columns are in the device view. They would choose from a short list, 10 or so, but a user editable field wasn't one of those. So can you open a bugzilla enhancement request for that one (http://bugs.ziptie.org? Get your friends that use ziptie to comment on the bug as well as we prioritize enhancement requests based on the number of users requesting it.
Leo can comment on the tags and hiding the toolbar in the new Web client.
At the moment, the sidebar
At the moment, the sidebar in the new client doesn't collapse and I'm not sure if I will even make it collapsable. If I do, I will be sure to make it extremely clear how to expand it again. As for being customizable, what kind of custom items would you be able to add?
The tag based tree is a good idea. In fact I already have been thinking about this. It won't be in Nemo, but it will probably make it's way into Dory (the release after Nemo).
- Leo
Really? On the Windows
Really? On the Windows client, on very far left there's an incredibly very thin grey button that runs the height of the client, which seems to do exactly that :)
Glad to hear that the tree based tags are in the pipeline :)
Sorry, I wasn't clear. In
Sorry, I wasn't clear. In Nemo the desktop client is being replaced with a web client (built on flex). We plan to have a beta in a couple weeks. So "at the moment" refers to the new web client that is under active development.
- Leo