Panel ID is not the same as the Grafana panel ID

[klynch]

Hubot Grafana supports the concept of panel ID, where a query like hubot graf db graphite-carbon-metrics:3 returns the third panel of a particular dashboardby iterating through each panel until it finds the Nth one.

This is a little unintuitive. I would expect this value to match the panel ID in Grafana which is used to construct the URL (panelId=#{panel.id}). Using position rather than ID is actually a little inflexible, especially when referencing large overview dashboards that are being tweaked over time. This can lead to saved aliases from becoming broken at inconvenient times.

Since I don't want to necessarily break backwards compatibility, I am not sure how both formats can be supported. Perhaps something along the lines of graph db systems-overview:id34 to represent the panel id?

[stephenyeargin]

Shares a lot in common with the frustrations voiced in #20. We may need @torkelo to weigh in on what may be the best way to get a particular panel out of the returned result set from the API with a unique identifier that doesn't "move" once created.

/cc @Tenzer

Relevant code: https://github.com/stephenyeargin/hubot-grafana/blob/master/src/grafana.coffee#L120-L130

[torkelo]

I thought hubot grafana used the panel id

[Tenzer]

@torkelo It used to do that, but that was changed in #17 in order to make it easier to find the specific panel you want.

I find the current way of working to be most intuitive, but it may depend on how you normally use the feature. For me/us we don't post the same graph regularly, it's basically only something we do when we want to show our colleagues some specific finding in a specific graph, and in those cases I find it to be easier to either use the name or the number (not ID) of the graph.
It may of course also depend on the amount of graphs which is on each dashboard.

If we want to add support for specifying either the ID or the number of the graph, then it's going to tie into the parsing of panel number and search term which is here: https://github.com/stephenyeargin/hubot-grafana/blob/master/src/grafana.coffee#L60-L67.

[stephenyeargin]

So I suppose it will come down to a few things:

• panelId isn't exposed in the interface (that I'm aware of, short of in the URL), so we would need to include it in the output of a dashboard somehow in case they want to commit it to memory
• Should we change the default <dashboard>:<integer> behavior to use panelID, or opt for <dashboard>:panel-<integer> for the canonical identifier and the integer format as the "optical" panel identifier.

[stephenyeargin]

For what it's worth, I've updated the README in #29 to reflect the current optical identification. I can still see a use for having another processing fork for retrieving by the panelID as well.

[ShonM]

Any kind of switch or option to choose between real and visual ID would be hugely appreciated!

[stephenyeargin]

Fixed with v1.4.9