Problem

Right now the config sync process is all or nothing, which means that if a user sees come config they want to import and some they don't (and/or some they don't understand why its being listed) then they have to sort it all out before syncing.

Solution

It would probably be relatively easy to change this so that the user selects exactly what pieces of config they want to import. This would go a long way to improving the UX of the config system, because even if the user encounters some changes they don't expect or understand in addition to the ones they do expect, they can choose the ones they are ready for an figure the rest out later.

Complication

While this isn't difficult to implement in the UI, the dependency chain can be a nightmare for certain types of config (most notably stuff associated with the field system.) Some potential solutions:

Brainstorming

- Config owned by certain modules can't be cherrypicked
- Add a metadata key indicating whether the piece of config can be cherrypicked (would rely on #1648930: Introduce configuration schema and use for translation happening)

Comments

sun’s picture

Category: task » feature

On my (sheer endless) list of todos for the config system, this appears very low as "nice to have" (or "could have" in MoSCoW)...

I think we can resolve the general UI/UX issues with the config sync screens without a cherry-picking feature — and I'm also really not sure whether the feature would be a good idea; not only due to the technical dependency problems you already outlined, but also because it means a huge and very complex interface for ordinary users. So I hope you don't mind if we change this to a feature?

gdd’s picture

It probably should have been a feature request anyways. It is essentially a big hammer to the problem ('The UX is broken but this allows people to work around the broken UX to do what they need to') so its totally not ideal. I am curious why it would make the UI much more complicated. If we can leave it essentially as it is, but with checkboxes next to each item, then it seems like it is not that much worse than what we have right now (dependency issues aside.)

gdd’s picture

Status: Active » Closed (won't fix)

It appears we won't be getting to this so I'm wont fixing until such a time as things change