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Stop Dashboard view changing whenever a connection is opened

I'm finding the Dashboard incredibly frustrating. It doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. It is an ideal resource for advanced slicing and filtering a large set of connection objects, so I can identify and open connections that match certain criteria. However, once I have filtered my list down to what I need, there's nothing I can do with it -- I can't seem to export that list to a file, or copy that list to the clipboard as CSV, or anything else. All I can do is connect to one, or bulk-edit / bulk-connect a selection. Most importantly, though (at least for me), is that the second I actually open a connection from that filtered list, the whole list disappears and is replaced with a context-based view, depending on the connection type. In 99% of cases, for me, that is supposed to be a list of active Terminal Sessions on the currently connected server (but, for some reason, this is always completely empty). But there is no way to get back to the list I have spent my time filtering, so I can connect to what would have been the next one in my list. If I click the only place I know to get the context back to filtering objects (i.e. the navigation tree), all my filtering is gone and I have to start again. While I know I can filter my connections, select them all and tell them to open all at once, that doesn't work as well as I'd like either -- if any one of the connections fails, the bulk-connect loop stops, and the Dashboard has already changed and lost my list, so there's nothing I can do about it. Besides, opening 300 connections at once is hardly friendly on my resources. In general, I have only one use for the Dashboard -- that's to access the screen which lets me bulk-select and filter the connection objects, and I could really do with that "connection object viewer" being a fixed, static tab that doesn't change from under me based on context (and export would be nice-to-have, too!). I am sure other people have many uses for the other views of that Dashboard, but I think these would be better as separate, first-order options in the View ribbon, which open independent tabs. You could leave some contextual logic to show/hide certain views (e.g. Terminal Sessions) based on whether we are using a connection type that benefits from those views, but the advanced connection filtering/navigation view should not be contextual.


Hi,


thanks for the feedback. Let me just say upfront, the way the dashboard behaves by default is based on early implementations and a lot of users are used to the way it works now but you can customize a lot and probably can tweak the settings in a way which is much more suitable for your use cases.

  •  You can actually configure the dashboard to keep the filters when you switch between folders. Click on the gear icon on the far upper right corner in the folder dashboard to see the options. Uncheck "Automatically reset filters"
  • The dashboard can be docked on any edge to keep it visible even if connections are opened and switched between.
  • The dashboard can be closed and re-opened using the View -> Dashboard command at any time.
  • Under View -> Options -> Behavior you can control:
    • whether or not the selection in the tree is tracked in the tab bar
    • whether or not the selection in the tab bar is tracked in the navigation tree

Also check out this help topic: https://content.royalapplications.com/Help/RoyalTS/V5/index.html?reference_options_behavior.htm


Let me know if one or more of the above settings improves your workflow or if you still miss a specific option.


Thanks,
Stefan

I must have looked at that gear icon ten times before starting this thread, and not spotted (or realised the implications of) the "Automatically clear filter" option!  Yes, that improves my workflow immensely, so thanks for that. 


I realise now, of course, that it is specifically the Dashboard's context for Folders that I use the most, and is to what I was referring when I discussed "lists of connections".


Of course, now that my filters are not auto-clearing, I can see a need for a "Clear all filters" button on the view, but I think that need is met by the Filter Editor that appears at the bottom of the list.


Would still love the ability to copy that view (and/or selected items in that view) to the clipboard as CSV data, or to export that list as a CSV, though!

Can you provide more details on the use case regarding copying / exporting the folder dashboard content?


Thanks!

Hi Stefan Re copying/exporting from the folder dashboard: the folder view is useful in that it shows a tabular view of all the settings for all connections, which can be filtered and sorted like an Excel spreadsheet. Sometimes, it would be useful to get that table into something like a real spreadsheet or list (e.g. if I want to read it, loop through it with a script; or import it into another system, like an asset database). I figured a CSV export of that view would be easiest to implement. A similar thing can be seen in Windows MMC views, where the typical right-hand panel often has context-menu option called Export List, which will write the panel content to a text file.

Hi JimBob,


in this case there's a simple trick which doesn't actually require you to use the export feature at all.


In the folder dashboard, simply select all the rows (CTRL - A for everything) and hit CTRL - C to copy the selection to the clipboard. In Excel, simply use CTRL - V to paste all the data into the spreadsheet.


Let me know if this helps.


Regards,
Stefan

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