Modern UI: Ex-/Import Preferences missing

Feedback & Ideas
1

Hi,

while testing the nightly build I noticed, when trying to restore settings and repositories, there seems to be no option to import the preferences. Whilst not crucial, it’s an important quality of life feature.

Best
Mike

2

Hi Mike,

thanks for reporting this. I’ll make our product team aware. :slight_smile:

I’ll link this thread, so anyone else missing this feature, please feel encouraged to vote for this thread.

It would also be interesting to understand the use-cases here: are they mostly relating to the administration of client profiles / preference profiles (hosted on our enterprise software)?

To reach the export/import preferences feature right away, it is possible to switch to the classic UI via the cog wheel in the top right.

Kind regards
Marvin

1 Like
3

Hi @marvin.kickuth,

thanks for your feedback. The use case is, in a wider sense, to be able to restore Knime, incl. repositories and installed extensions, in a convenient fashion.

The latest update from Knime 5.0 to 5.1 required a full deinstallation before installation. There is currently no way to ensure all repositories, even when incompatible with the current version, as well as previously installed extensions are not missed.

In case of a worst case scenario, a complete system failure which I recently faced, it would be a huge quality of life feature if i.e. the settings, repositories and installed extensions were exportable. Maybe it’s even worth uploading them in the private hub (more closely following the 3-2-1 backup process).

All repositories imported from would, for safety and compatibility reasons, be disabled by default. In case of duplicates the restore process might allow to compare and decide which to chose or simply adding the affix / suffix “Restored”.

In case of a require complete deinstallation, the knime.ini file currently gets deleted as well. renaming it to “.bak” and adding a time stamp in case of multiple ini-bak-files exists would greatly help to restore settings like Xmx<memory>g: or others from:

I understand that this might go way beyond the current scope but I strongly believe these edge cases will help to provide an edge over competing software because a solution shows it’s superiority in the worst case scenarios when most of the pain is felt.

Best
Mike

1 Like