Easier way to edit list of variables

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1

Editing a long list of variables is painfully slow with a lot of mousing around.

Is there an easier way?

2

Hi Michael,

Thanks for reaching out. From the Web UI I’m afraid there’s no easier way to do this. We do have a very popular uservoice sugestion for this that has been gaining quite a momentum: http://octopusdeploy.uservoice.com/forums/170787-general/suggestions/7192251-improve-variables-ui . Could you please drop by that link, add some votes and specially a comment explaining why is this currently painful to you and what things you’d like to see implemented for this in the future? We’ll be reviewing all the comments on that page when we decide to revamp the variable’s UX.

You could also update the variables using the REST API or the Octopus migration tool. This way you’ll only have to deal with JSON files which can be easier handle when you have to edit too much data.

There are also some Open Source alternatives to deal with bulk of variables using JSON files: https://github.com/Dalmirog/OctoPosh/wiki/Modifying-Variable-Sets

Best regards,
Dalmiro

3

Hi Dalmiro,

Thanks for your comment. I’ll definitely vote up that suggestion.

But the phrase you used “when we decide to revamp…” makes it sound like it’s far into the future.

Why not get started on fixing this now? It’s clear that anyone who uses Octopus has to deal with variables, and it’s also clear that the bigger the project, the longer the list.

It’s obviously a big point of frustration and I don’t understand why this is not being given a higher priority.

Michael

4

Hi Michael,

Right now we have our hands quite full with the release of 3.3 and the design and development of 3.4. Both these releases include features that have been asked by far more users. Specially 3.4 and its multi-tenancy support (see RFC blog post).

I’m sorry that this is such a big point of frustration for you, and hope you can hang on with us until we do something about this particular topic in the future.

Best regards,
Dalmiro

5

Hi Michael,

Just to chime in here. A large part of Multi-tenancy is variables, management and scoping. It is going to relieve a lot of the issues we know about with variable management. There is no point in us doing anything in the mean time (being we are working on MT right now) to change the variables pages, as we don’t know where they will end up. There is always talk about variables and priority, but we also knew MT would take away much of the bulk management problems.

After MT we have other plans. But as Dalmiro said it depends on community support and other factors such as complexity (how much of the product will the change touch) and when it can be completed and which release it would fit best in. We have to think of everyone.

We never ever refer back to this support forum for commentary on the features when they are built, so nice constructive feedback on UV is the way to go.

Vanessa

6

Hi Vanessa-

Thanks for your comments. As you pointed out, there is a lot of talk about variables, so users are in need of help with this. Personally, I’ll take any and all improvements to the variables situation, so I look forward to see what’s coming.

I’m also anxious to make use of the ZIP support in 3.3, are we close to a release there?

Michael

7

Hi Michael,

We are aiming for RTM sometime between this week and the next one.

Best regards,
Dalmiro