Edit class in catalog without branching.

[digerata]

Several times I have finished my appliance and then added it to the catalog only to discover I forgot to change the color or the name or the category or any of the many things in the class definition.

The only recourse at that point is branching, editing, re-adding to the catalog or just simply living with it. Branching and re-adding to the catalog are relatively time consuming.

It would be awesome to be able to modify a class definition in-place without branching. I know why I need to branch before modifying a class, but many times I am not creating a new version of a class, only making changes.

-Mike

[PeterNic]

Mike,

I see the use case... maybe the ability to "undo move" or to move the appliance into a singleton (instead of making a copy) would work?

Regards,
-- Peter

[digerata]

Well, not really an undo task. The problem is that copying to a catalog and branching take significant amounts of time more than the actual change I am making to the class. Let's give it a number, say, 30 seconds. Maybe the change is simply checking a box on a required property or selecting red for the color when it was violet. I have to BRANCH (30s), Edit Class (5 seconds in 5 clicks of the mouse), Save (5s), and finally Add to Catalog (30s).

All told, to do 5 seconds of work took me over a minute of "overhead."

Looking at a simple, but real use case:

Say I finish my class and add it to the catalog. I then move to my production application and drop in the new class. At that moment, I realize I missed a configuration item on the class. Maybe I want to change the color or maybe I need to adjust the default bandwidth value. More often then not, I am going to skip making that change (call it skipping the normal good housekeeping) because of the additional overhead of making that change is not worth it. But in the long run, my house gets messier and I end up worse off.

This feature could possibly be more aptly named "Online Class Editing" or something or other. Of course, I would expect the changes to take place in running instances. Only when those instances are restarted. Just like what happens when you branch and save back to the catalog.

I realize that there could very well be significant technical barriers that make something like this practically infeasible for the slight benefit to OCD (obsessive compulsive) users like myself. But it would definitely be a time saver.

-Mike

[PeterNic]

Mike,

I understand. I think that the dangers will outweigh the benefits (but we do want to please the OCD folks among ourselves :). I will give it another thought, esp. with a view toward an upcoming global catalog feature (useful when you have multiple grids in different datacenters that need to have access to the same appliances).

In the meantime, I'll see if we might be able to speed up move from catalog to singleton and back -- this will keep the workflow but at least decrease the time-barrier.

Best,
-- Peter

[digerata]

Sorry! I just realized a typo:

Of course, I would expect the changes to take place in running instances.

That should be:

Of course, I would NOT expect the changes to take place in running instances.

Thanks for the consideration! The global catalog would definitely be something we would use in the future. I'm fairly sure we are going to need it. :) Thanks!

-Mike