🚀 Feature: Filter `Location`s by targets in the main catalog table

[dotboris]

🔖 Feature description

The main catalog table (ex: https://demo.backstage.io/catalog?filters%5Bkind%5D=location&filters%5Buser%5D=all) has a filter on the top-right. Currently, this filter seems to only search the location name and not the location target.

Here's an example to illustrate:

When I look for dice-roller in the backstage demo:

I should be able to put dice-roller in the filter box and find it easily. Unfortunately, this doesn't work:

You should be able to validate this for yourself using the backstage demo

🎤 Context

This is a must when loading the catalog from GitHub using the GithubEntityProvider. The location names it generates are all generated-{hash}.

In my case, I sometimes have to debug things in the catalog and getting a hold the right Location is very useful to figure out what's going on or to do manual manipulations like deleting the location.

✌️ Possible Implementation

No response

👀 Have you spent some time to check if this feature request has been raised before?

• I checked and didn't find similar issue

🏢 Have you read the Code of Conduct?

• I have read the Code of Conduct

Are you willing to submit PR?

Yes I am willing to submit a PR!

[dotboris]

I did some testing and I found a solution:

diff --git a/plugins/catalog/src/components/CatalogTable/CatalogTable.tsx b/plugins/catalog/src/components/CatalogTable/CatalogTable.tsx
index 006210bb1d6a..cd48bb1c3e64 100644
--- a/plugins/catalog/src/components/CatalogTable/CatalogTable.tsx
+++ b/plugins/catalog/src/components/CatalogTable/CatalogTable.tsx
@@ -109,6 +109,7 @@ const defaultColumnsFunc: CatalogTableColumnsFunc = ({ filters, entities }) => {
       case 'location':
         return [
           columnFactories.createSpecTypeColumn({ hidden: !showTypeColumn }),
+          {field: 'entity.spec.target', hidden: true, searchable: true},
           columnFactories.createSpecTargetsColumn(),
         ];
       default:

This issue happens because of the discrepancy between spec.target and spec.targets. The column defined by columnFactories.createSpecTargetsColumn() specified field: 'entity.spec.targets'. When the table handles the searching, it ends up looking in the spec.targets field but not in the spec.target field. In my example above, that location happens to define spec.target which is not getting searched through since it's not in the columns.

The fix here is to add a hidden & searchable column for spec.target. That way the search can look through it as well.

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[dotboris]

I just tested this now and the issue is now fixed. I believe that it was released in 1.24