make active backend more visible

[soxofaan]

It's hard to see what backend you are connected to. There is the "server" menu on the top right to show it, but that opens a modal that blocks all the rest of the UI

During normal usages it's only readily visible in the URL, but that's URL-encoded, so that's quite cryptic:

Some browsers even hide URL params, which even removes that hint,
e.g. vivaldi:

I think there is plenty of room (by default) in the top blue bar to mention the active backend (by URL or title)

[soxofaan]

making it more visible would also help with user support request for cases where users just share a screenshot but don't mention what backend they are using

[christophfriedrich]

My first reaction was "Don't you KNOW what backend you have connected to?!" but I do see that this might not be the case for users that are less technical or less into the whole openEO stuff than me/us. Your added comment about support request screenshots also sounds very reasonable and like a handy thing to have.

It would be super easy to implement, so this is more a question of how we want it (and whether at all, what do you think @m-mohr?)

I created some mockups:

Adding the title to the output:

Especially when the user is given as an email address, it wouldn't even look too weird to have the url there:

Unlike for "user", there is not as canonical of an icon for "server", so I don't know if dropping the Server: text would still be sufficient:

I think it would work though. Alternatively, the icon could also be replaced by something like https://fontawesome.com/icons/server?f=classic&s=solid (a server rack), https://fontawesome.com/icons/cloud?f=classic&s=solid (a cloud), or https://fontawesome.com/icons/arrow-right-arrow-left?f=classic&s=solid (arrows left and right for "connection").

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I think there is plenty of room (by default) in the top blue bar to mention the active backend (by URL or title)

On our big developer's screens yes, maybe less so on laptops. Or devices by non-powerusers. Especially with the URL I'd fear that it could get quite long -- in my mockups, at first I chose the connection.baseUrl and printing https://openeocloud.vito.be/openeo/1.0.0 all over that blue area in that big and bold of a font did become quite large already:

As you see, in the current implementation a long user name gets shortened -- how helpful would it be if the same happened to a long URL? (I personally really dislike automatic ...s in general)

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Sidenote:

Some browsers even hide URL params

Why would someone want that... Techy me could never 😂 Reminds me of Windows Explorer hiding file extensions by default...

[soxofaan]

"Don't you KNOW what backend you have connected to

At VITO we have dozens of openeo deployments and variations (prod, staging, dev) and it's not unusual to have multiple of these open in separate web editor tabs/windows. So yes, even as an experienced openEO users I can easily lose track of what I'm connected to 😄

Thanks for those screenshots to make this more visual.
I think we can even be a bit more radical: currently, the largest most prominent text on the page is "web editor", while this is usually the least relevant during actual usage. So why not flip things around a bit like this rough sketch:

That's probably a bit more resilient in case the backend title or URL get a bit long

[soxofaan]

shower thought: we could even play with some kind of "favicon" resource linked from the capabilities document to show with the title.

[m-mohr]

The last option would be a possibility, but currently many backend return titles that are not ideal I'd say.

[christophfriedrich]

Current titles returned by backends, as listed on https://hub.openeo.org/:

• Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem openEO API
• EO4EU openEO endpoints
• EODC openEO API
• Eurac Research - openEO - backend
• Google Earth Engine Proxy for openEO
• GRASS GIS Driver
• openEO Platform
• Sentinel Hub OpenEO
• VITO Remote Sensing openEO API

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Do you mean the image resource as an actual favicon in the browser UI? Or as an icon/logo next to the title within the actual page?

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I kinda like displaying both title and URL. However, I would still try to make it clear that connecting to a backend via the Web Editor means you are using a third-party tool which is not affiliated with the backend.

At least not necessarily, as e.g. openeo.cloud does host its custom-themed editor on https://editor.openeo.cloud/, whose header area looks like this:

In more specific words: I would make the title at maximum the same font size as "Web Editor", not bigger.

[soxofaan]

The last option would be a possibility

you mean the last option of @christophfriedrich 's mockups, or my mockup?

but currently many backend return titles that are not ideal I'd say

put some "text-overflow: ellipsis " CSS on the title to give backends an incentive to make their title more compact 😛

Do you mean the image resource as an actual favicon in the browser UI? Or as an icon/logo next to the title within the actual page?

let that be topic of another topic maybe, to not bikeshed this discussion

[m-mohr]

Yeah, displaying the server title from capabilities instead the "Server" text.

But I don't like the titles that we see that much. "openEO Platform" is good, but not sure about all the appended "openEO API" variants. For example for VITO it's "VITO Remote Sensing openEO API", why not just "VITO Remote Sensing" or so? Sometimes I also just saw "openEO" as server title 🙈 But that option would also mean that if you use the same title for dev deployments, it wouldn't help too much. So you' need to name it e.g. "VITO Remote Sensing (development)" or so.

I don't like your proposal because it doesn't allow for custom titles such as "openEO Platform Editor", which would communicate the same but with less words / elements in the header. I also wouldn't expect the "(i) https://...." to be clickable. I'm also not sure whether the URL for most users is so important that you need to show it so prominently.

[soxofaan]

But I don't like the titles that we see that much. "openEO Platform" is good, but not sure about all the appended "openEO API" variants. For example for VITO it's "VITO Remote Sensing openEO API", why not just "VITO Remote Sensing" or so? Sometimes I also just saw "openEO" as server title

Isn't that because the title is barely noticeable during practical usage, so there is no incentive for backends to optimize it in some sense? About the VITO case: I guess that's still the title we've set initially without knowing at that time how the title was going to be consumed or presented.
Putting the title on the front stage in the web editor should change those dynamics.

The docs about the title leave a lot to the imagination, so it could also help to put some guidelines there or explain how the title will be used.

                  title:
                    type: string
                    description: The name of the service.
                    example: Example Cloud Corp.

I don't like your proposal because it doesn't allow for custom titles such as "openEO Platform Editor", which would communicate the same but with less words / elements in the header.

I'm not sure what you mean here. This proposal is just about changing the default look. Deployments that need customization have enough options to do that (changing templates, CSS hacks, whatever ...)

I also wouldn't expect the "(i) https://...." to be clickable. I'm also not sure whether the URL for most users is so important that you need to show it so prominently.

I agree it should not be clickable there.
I'm still convinced it's useful to show by default (can be very small however). We do a lot of openeo user support (across various openeo deployments) and a typical step is trying to figure out which backend (url) the user is using. It would help if this is readily visible in a screenshot/screenshare.
And as you noted yourself, there are version subtleties (e.g. prod vs dev or openEO 1.1 vs 1.2) that could unnecessarily overload the title, but by design are already encoded in the URL.