Right now the "Views by Device Type" are a bit confusing IMHO and can cause some confusion. I would like to propose a way to make this much more understandable and give the end-user more information when working with this page.
This feature request is prompted by "Case #896698 - Views by Device Type keep changing".
Right now when you look at this page, you see two columns, the first one being the "Object Type", which corresponds to the "Machine Type" when working with nodes in Orion. My first suggestions would be to change this column heading to "Machine Type" for consistency throughout the product.
The second column title is "Nodes / Select a Web View", and for each "Object Type" there is a dropdown where you can select the view that you want for that object. Most of them are set to "(default)", but several objects such as Cisco wireless controllers and AP's, have specific views named here. For an example, the "Cisco 4402 Wireless LAN Controller" has this dropdown set to "Wireless Controller - Summary" by default. Some objects, such as the "Cisco 881 Router" have the wrong view selected as their default, in this case "Wireless Autonomous AP - Summary". Now, while the "Cisco 881 Router" does have an AP embedded in it, it is managed and discovered separately as the "Cisco AP801agn". The "Cisco 881 Router" should have the default view of any other Cisco router or device (ie: "Node Details - Summary"), but mistakenly has this AP View instead.
The problem I had was I would change it from this "Wireless Autonomous AP - Summary" view to "(default)" and for a period of time it would correctly have the "Node Details - Summary" view like I wanted. But, the next time a node discovery, list resources, or Inventory was done on the device, it would change it back to "Wireless Autonomous AP - Summary" view. To me this doesn't make sense, if Orion truly thought that its default view should be the AP view, then why when I changed it to "(default)" did it get the "Node Details - Summary" view for a period of time instead of always having the AP view that it thinks the default should be. Had I actually set the view to "Node Details - Summary" explicitly instead of doing "(default)", I'm told it would have stayed however. Even thinking about this gets confusing in my mind!!
---- PROPOSED CHANGES ---
So, my proposed changes are multiple.
1) As mentioned before, change the first column to be named "Machine Type" rather than "Object Type" to be more consistent with other parts of Orion.
2) Insert a new column right after this first column entitled "Default View", which spells out what Orion believes to be the default view for this Machine Type. This column is not changeable by the end user, it is just a reminder if we change the default device type of what we would need to set it to to change it back.
3) Change the way the third column dropdown works. If the end-user leaves it set to "(default)", it will use the view that Orion considers to be the default view. But still allow the end-user to select their own view here if desired. Once an end-user customizes a device view, Orion will not modify it.
The benefits of this are multiple. There is no mystery as to what the default view Orion feels a device type should have, plus it would be obvious when the end-user selects their own view. Furthermore, lets say that there is an upgrade to Orion where they fix the fact that a "Cisco 881 Router" is not really an AP. The end-user would be able to easily see that the "Default View" for this device type has changed and can set it back if they so choose. Or lets say the Orion upgrade even adds a more enhanced view for the "Cisco 881 Router" than the end-user picked as a custom view. Once again, it would be easy for them to see this and choose the new enhanced view if they want. This would also hold true for devices that Orion currently doesn't know much about, if a new view is created for said device, it will be easy to know when this happens and how to choose it if you want.
