Preview upcoming changes to the GUI query builder (updated)

flamber · July 26, 2019, 5:34am

@benjamin.kassentoft I’m pretty sure that was fixed last week. Unless there’s going to be a preview3 or candidate, then you’ll see it in 0.33.0

maz · July 26, 2019, 4:35pm

Thanks, Benjamin. I’ll double-check that this is indeed fixed.

(And yes, FYI, we are planning on putting out a release candidate within the next few days. )

gazzer82 · July 31, 2019, 4:40pm

Love the work so far!

Just wanted to flag that I’m also seeing the same bug as @lindsay-stevens with the visualisation settings pane being broken, same error in console. It also then seems to break any other functionality such as saving/configuring visualisation e.t.c once clicked.

I have tested in Chrome, and Safari on OSX with the same result in both.

I similarly did not have that issue on Preview 1.

Cheers

Gareth

maz · July 31, 2019, 6:27pm

Hey folks! Just wanted to let you know we’ve just put out a release candidate for version 0.33. We consider this version feature-complete, but the final release will likely have a few more bits of bug fixing and polish.

Thanks for all your feedback so far, and we’d love to hear what you think of this RC.

Cheers,
Maz

davijfcosta · July 31, 2019, 6:34pm

Hi guys, anyone knows about the SHARE/EMBED function in this version?

flamber · July 31, 2019, 6:37pm

@davijfcosta What do you mean? The share/embed button is now in the lower-right corner of the question.

flamber · July 31, 2019, 6:57pm

@maz Took RC1 for a spin yesterday (also emailed these notes to you).

Archive page (/archive) now shows tables too (#10439)
When using search, sometimes it returns the wrong connected collection. Example, searched “DB2” and it shows the questions called “DB2”, which are located in collection “DB2”, but the little tag on the search result says “DB1”. (#10438)
Should the top “Write SQL” button still be there, when it’s available under “Ask question”? If yes, then the tooltip is placed on the icon instead of the circle.
I know it has been a struggle to try to keep something simple like the old QB, but the new “Simple question” does a good job. One nit-pick, after selecting the table, then I have to use browser Back-button (or a new Simple or the Editor) to change table.
In editor, “View the SQL” doesn’t have a cursor pointer.
In editor, while I understand the reason for not being able to “Select None” Fields on the main table, it can be unclear to others - and really annoying, if you have a table with 100+ fields, where you only want to select a few.
In editor, since both Preview close-button and section remove-button looks the same, maybe the close-button should have a “Close preview” tooltip?
In editor, when joining I can select Saved Questions, which belong to a different database, which just results in the error (#10440):
Table does not exist, or belongs to a different Database
In editor, when joining a table, then the Group By binning of dates on the joined table is not visible, but you can still click the little greater-than-arrow (#10441).
Then when viewing in the Summary side panel, you cannot select/change binning of the joined table.
Example: Orders join with Products
In editor, all the popover’s (like table selector) doesn’t have the little pointer anymore. The old QB has that little arrow to point to whatever object referenced the popover.
In editor, the direction icon for sorting is difficult to understand. Asc/desc is not the same as up/down. Could it just use the same symbol as the column headers show?
Table viz, clicking the column header hides the sort direction symbol on all headers for a split-second (slow computer with Firefox showing a large table with 30 columns) (#10442).
Question with joined table (Orders joined Products), then in Table viz settings it still allows to add columns from Products. Probably because the joined table is also linked with FK. But adding a column gives the following error (#10444):
Value does not match schema: {:query {:fields (named (not ("distinct" a-clojure.lang.PersistentVector)) "Distinct, non-empty sequence of Field clauses")}}
Grouping by two same-named columns fails with the error (#10445):
Duplicate column name
Example: Orders, Count, Group by Orders->CreatedAt and Products->CreatedAt.
Simple question, select Orders, summaries Count by CreatedAt:Year and Products->Category.
Now you want to filter by the previous two years, but the first CreatedAt option is actually now a number and not a date, but it still shows a date-selector. And fails with the error:
Cannot parse "DATE" constant "2016"
Not sure if non-tech people will be understanding they’re filtering on the aggregated data (but the date-selector is wrong no matter what).
Why is the Alert-icon shown for non-saved questions, while Sharing-icon only appears after question is saved?
Considering the amount of issues/threads there are about row limit (download vs aggregated vs plain), should there perhaps be a note, when exceeding 2000, since it’s an input box now?

EDIT: Seen some more issues.

In editor, the “Add filters to narrow your answer” popover goes outside the top of the screen, so I cannot select the top columns. Firefox and Chromium on my very modern 1366x768.
As a work-around, click the Data-section Preview, so there’s more scroll space and have the Filter-section at the bottom of the screen.
When showing a table-viz, but clicked the new raw-data button, and then edit settings or change visulization, then nothing happens (because it’s showing raw-data-viz), but there’s no hint or auto-revert to visualization.
When starting a new question, then the raw-data toggle is not shown. Even after changing some settings. But if a column is added/removed, then it shows the toggle. This happens with all types of questions.
After adding a filter with side-panel, should it close the panel or just return, so you can add more? And then maybe change the “Cancel” button to “Done”, like the Summaries panel.
The little reload-icon which runs the query again is missing a tooltip.

maz · July 31, 2019, 6:59pm

Yes, going through those notes you’d emailed me is on my to-do list for today. Really appreciate it!

davijfcosta · July 31, 2019, 7:35pm

Sorry @flamber!! The button was not showing because the feature was disabled in admin panel.
Now it´s ok!!

maz · July 31, 2019, 10:35pm

Thanks again for these great notes, Flamber.

Yep, seeing this too. Filed here https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10439
Yep, filed as #10438 like you mentioned.
Yeah, we figured it would be a nice shortcut for those who have SQL editor permissions and who primarily write SQL. And yeah, it seems you’re right that the tooltip is appearing when hovering on the icon.
Glad you’re liking the simple question mode. You can also actually click on the name of the database in the top-right to go back to at least the Browse view to pick a different table.
Yeah, that’s on my list of polish items. I also don’t think the placement and color of it are quite right.
That’s a bug. You absolutely should be able to select none.
Yeah, I liked a suggestion someone made (maybe it was you?) that the preview button itself should just be a toggle to show/hide the preview, instead of using the X icon to remove the preview.
Good catch. Filed here: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10440
Reproduced and filed here: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10441
Intentional
Good feedback. I’ll take a look at improving this.
Yeah, looks like it’s hiding it on mouse-down. Filed as a p3 here: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10442
Repro’d and filed: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10444
Seems like it works in the preview, and you can also create this kind of question if you start from a Simple question, but the problem happens when clicking Visualize from the notebook. Filed here: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10445
Yeah, seems to only happen when the granularity is set to Year, right? Filed here: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10446
Good question! Filed here: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10447
Ah yeah, that’s interesting. You can technically enter a value greater than 2,000. I’ll have to think about that one.
That sucks. Filed: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10448
I’ve been tripped up by this at times as well. Would you expect the behavior to be, if you’re in data-view mode, when you click on a chart type that it would automatically toggle back to the visualization view? Seems logical to me.
The idea is that the data-viz toggle only shows up if you’ve visualized the results, which includes changing any visualization settings for a table. Which settings did you change that did not result in the toggle appearing?
Possibly. Do you think you’d always want this to be the case? I.e., are you often adding multiple filters in batches?
Thanks, noted.

Again, this was super helpful! Do let me know if you run into anything else.

Cheers,
Maz

flamber · July 31, 2019, 11:37pm

@maz Awesomeness

3.) Okay, then the check should not only be {hasDataAccess &&, since that would show the button for users without SQL access.

4.) Yeah, to a massive list without a quick-search function, which we rounded many posts ago, but I’m okay with browser back-button.

6.) I think this was done, since you’re not allowed to have no fields selected on the primary table, but I would rather have it result in an error if all fields are removed than not being able to toggle.

7.) Of course it was

10.) Okay, it just makes it a bit harder to clearly see where the popover belongs, since there can be a lot buttons in editor and not just horizontally.

15.) Yes, only year as far as I can see. I think it might have something to do with issue #1992

19.) If you make any changes while in data-view, then it might be best to return to the visualization. Otherwise we could litter the entire interface with hints, but that’s not really the Zen.

20.) If you change the column names or formatting, then it doesn’t show the toggle. Not sure if there’s other ways to not-trigger it.

21.) Not very often, so maybe it’s okay. Just triggered my OCD, since it behaved differently from Summary panel.

Can you reproduce issue #10402? Because with RC1, it now just shows the “Pick your data” page instead of a spinner, when clicking a QB question.

flamber · July 31, 2019, 11:59pm

@maz Question, what’s going to happen to QB in Admin > Data Model > (db) > (table) > Segments/Metrics?

maz · August 1, 2019, 12:06am

Question, what’s going to happen to QB in Admin > Data Model > (db) > (table) > Segments/Metrics?

Leaving it as-is for this upcoming release. We have plans to change how metrics and segments are defined in future releases; probably by simply marking a saved question as a metric/segment, so that they can be found and organized in collections, and so SQL questions could be used as metrics/segments.

benjamin.kassentoft · August 1, 2019, 3:09am

@maz
Just installed the new release candidate and right away saw that you have now added the possibility to define which columns/fields to include - AWESOME!
Sadly it just comes with some issues:
You can't deselect all columns on the first table as you can for joined columns
When you have a table with many columns it is very difficult to select/deselect columns as it "jumps" - and deselect/select another column that was previously selected/deselected - See screenshot below

maz · August 1, 2019, 8:56pm

Thanks for the feedback, Benjamin! I’ve filed that here: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/10460

flamber · August 1, 2019, 9:09pm

@maz Do you want us to file issues on Github from now on, since it’s not a preview anymore?

Simple question, show table visualization and change column order, then it shows a “Get answer” button instead of just refreshing. I haven’t figured out if there’s a technical reason for this. (#10466)

maz · August 1, 2019, 9:13pm

That would be great for things that are specific reproducible bugs or UX issues, yes. Thanks!

Here’s the link to do so for folks who don’t know: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/new/choose

I think what’s going on in that latest issue you found is related to how we tried to solve some performance issues we were seeing when modifying column order, title, etc., which is that the query gets put into a “dirty” state but doesn’t get refreshed until you click Done. An issue for this would be great, please!

gazzer82 · August 2, 2019, 8:46am

Hi guys, just moved from Preview 2 to RC1 and it seems to have broken the Oracle connection for me, the oracle ojdbc file was removed it seems during the upgrade from my plugins folder, causing it to throw and error about not finding the driver, which makes sense.

So I have added the ojdbc7.jar file back to the plugins folder, so it now has this, which seems odd as I don’t believe their was a file called oracle.metabase-driver.jar in that folder before.

So, has something changed with how Oracle works?

With or without the ojdbc7.jar file in the plugins folder I get the following error when I try to connect to the DB - No suitable driver found for jdbc:oracle:thin:@...:1521:r2

Any ideas?

Thanks

Gareth

flamber · August 2, 2019, 2:34pm

Hi @gazzer82 You should create a different thread, since it’s not related to the new interface.
You should use ojdbc8.jar according to the documentation. The file oracle.metabase-driver.jar is the Metabase driver, the ojdbc8.jar is a proprietary Oracle JDBC driver. They are both needed to use Oracle database as datasource.

gazzer82 · August 2, 2019, 3:55pm

Hi @flamber understand where you're coming from, but with the file in place, and either ojdbc8.jar or ojdbc7.jar in the plugins folder, and using the Preview 2 jar file, everything works fine. Swapping the jar file to the RC1 version, Oracle doesn't work. So it is related to something that has changed between Preview 2 and RC1.

I have noticed that the GUI has actually changed in the DB add window, and now has an additional config switch "Automatically run queries when doing simple filtering and summarizing", so their have been some changes between the versions.

{:status :failed,
 :class java.sql.SQLException,
 :error "No suitable driver",
 :stacktrace
 ("java.sql.DriverManager.getDriver(DriverManager.java:315)"