Group the services list by categories

[alexmartinfr]

Issue:

Takeout currently sorts the services list by alphabetical order.
As more and more services will be added to the list, it might become a bit confusing to browse.

Suggestion:

Each service could have a category property, which could be used to at least group similar services.

Examples of categories:

• database
• storage
• search
• cache
• mail

Improvement:

Thetakeout enable command could now have two steps instead of one:

• Select a category of services
• Choose the relevant service in the curated list

[mattstauffer]

I don't know if I want extra steps, but I do like the idea of grouping.

I wonder if there's a way we could build a faster UI or a UI with more information available without adding an extra step?

[alexmartinfr]

I think the cli-menu separators could be a good start:

Extra steps would only be necessary when the service list begins to be too long. The same way multi-steps forms are only relevant in some cases.

[mattstauffer]

Yah, I like that!

[alexmartinfr]

Bear with me here, as this would need serious refactoring and is for now only generating the menu, but here is the raw idea:

public function handle(): void
{
    […]

    $databaseServices = [
        'mariadb' => 'MariaDB',
        'mysql' => 'MySQL',
        'mssql' => 'MS SQL'
    ];

    $searchServices = [
        'meilisearch' => 'MeiliSearch',
        'elasticsearch' => 'ElasticSearch'
    ];

    $option = $this->menu('Services to enable')->setTitleSeparator('=');

    /* displayCategory() private method */
    $option->addStaticItem('Database:')->addStaticItem('---------');

    foreach ($databaseServices as $service => $name) {
        $option->addOption($service, $name);
    }

    $option->addLineBreak('', 1);
    /* End of the displayCategory() private method */

    /* Start of the displayCategory() private method */
    $option->addStaticItem('Search:')->addStaticItem('-------');

    foreach ($searchServices as $service => $name) {
        $option->addOption($service, $name);
    }

    $option->addLineBreak('', 1);
    /* End of the displayCategory() private method */

    $option->setPadding(2, 5)->open();

    if (!$option) {
        return;
    }

    $this->enable($option);
}

Terminal preview:

I think it's safe to assume that people using Takeout will do so on a laptop or desktop, which means a minimum screen height of 768px. When taking various menu bars into account, we still have around 700px height to work with!

[jonsugar]

Yes, please!

The concept of categories would help me with the current project to port Lambo to PHP. I'm currently experimenting with calling takeout so that I can find enabled databases and prompt the user to start them if required (for example, when configuring a project with a Jetstream UI).

At the moment I am calling takeout list --json then collecting and filtering the output. I had mentioned to Matt in a DM:

Would be nice if something like the following was possible:

takeout list --json --stopped --type=database

[mattstauffer]

I still think this is a great idea, and I love Jon's note about using these in the CLI

[alexmartinfr]

As soon as Takeout integrate a categories concept for its services, I'll gladly leverage it to submit that feature in a proper PR 🙂

I've tried to add the concept of categories to the core of Takeout, but I am not comfortable enough with the codebase.
I hope someone else will be able to contribute that!

[danielebarbaro]

takeout use nunomaduro/laravel-console-menu package, a simple wrapper of php-school/cli-menu but there aren't subItem (https://github.com/php-school/cli-menu#sub-menu-item) or Split Item (https://github.com/php-school/cli-menu#split-item-1) implementations. In this case also Jon can use it

One way could be make a PR to nunomaduro/laravel-console-menu and add some new feature that we can use in takeout.

Alternative way is grouping services and iterate in some way

foreach($groups as $group => $values ) {
    $option = $this->menu("Group {$group}", $this->enableableServices($values))
            ->addLineBreak('', 1)
            ->setPadding(2, 5);
}

In all cases to a better classification/grouping of Service we can add a property on BaseService. This property is easy to group with something like $collection->groupBy()

what do you think about it?
I know quite well 😎 the codebase and if you want i can handle this task.

[alexmartinfr]

Grouping and iterating is the way to go IMHO 👍

In what I envision, each service should have a category property.
Then, we'll only have to iterate through every category to get the UI we want.
(I'm basically describing your code snippet here.)

If you can bring the category concept to services, that would be very welcome indeed.
Thanks!

PS: That terminal preview is not just a mockup, it's actually a screenshot of a running hacked version of Takeout. I didn't need to tweak the nunomaduro/laravel-console-menu package to do so 🙂

[danielebarbaro]

Services grouped by category in #135 .
If you have questions, feel free to ask. 🤓

I never used Minio maybe storage isn't the right place 🙈

@mattstauffer i can implement also Jon's note 😇

[alexmartinfr]

You rock, Daniele!

I've added a custom visual improvement I wanted to add, feel free to implement or reject it :)

https://github.com/tighten/takeout/pull/135/files#r494363191

[mattstauffer]

Closed via #135