Option to add folders to manage VMs

[tessus]

I was wondering whether a feature request is possible or even feasible.

I have a lot of VMs and I have noticed that managing them via the UI can become rather tedious. Thus it would be very useful to be able to create folders, in which I can put the VMs. The possibility to add tags was a step in the right direction, but it hasn't solved the necessity to scroll like a madman. I know that I can always use the search functionality (which is great btw). Is there a keyboard shortcut to get the focus on the search field?

But using additional folders would also pave the way for additional future features, e.g. bulk action on all VMs within a folder.

Is this something that can be done or would that require a major code refactor?

 

[Hannes Laimer]

Hey,

[1] is the place for things like this. You can perform bulk actions based on tags, and tags are basically (more flexible) folders

[1] https://bugzilla.proxmox.com/

 

[tessus]

Thanks for the reply.

tags are basically (more flexible) folders

Yes and no. Yes, as in you can use tags for bulk actions and color coding your VMs. No, because you currently still have potentially hundreds of VMs within a single folder. This is not very manageable. It's not too user friendly either.

I'm not saying it absolutely necessary, but it could make an admin's life a lot easier.

 

[gradams42]

I know this was in 2024, but I was wanting the same feature addition, and so I developed a fix. My github that includes the fix instructions are here:
https://github.com/gradams42/ProxmoxUpgrades.git
I allow for nested directories and even added a folder icon. The implementation works using an edit to the /usr/share/pve-manager/js/pvemanagerlib.js file which renders most (if not all) of the frontend logic. If you have any issues I will be actively updating it as it is used and tested.

 

[tessus]

Interesting addition. Personally I was looking for creating folders manually and adding VMs to those folders manually as well. I wanted to use a combination of folders and tags. Your solution by creating a folder structure based on tags is also nice, but doesn't fit my use case. But I can see how this can be very useful. Thanks for sharing. Who knows, maybe I can use this in the future.

If you made this configurable via a setting, e.g. a flag in the browser's storage (no UI changes necessary), or with a setting in the UI code that then uses the browser's storage, maybe the devs would merge your code. I'd ask them...

 

[gradams42]

Interesting addition. Personally I was looking for creating folders manually and adding VMs to those folders manually as well. I wanted to use a combination of folders and tags. Your solution by creating a folder structure based on tags is also nice, but doesn't fit my use case. But I can see how this can be very useful. Thanks for sharing. Who knows, maybe I can use this in the future.

If you made this configurable via a setting, e.g. a flag in the browser's storage (no UI changes necessary), or with a setting in the UI code that then uses the browser's storage, maybe the devs would merge your code. I'd ask them...

Thank you for the reply. So I have put more thought into it and decided to try and improve it in this way: in the top left there is a 'View' selection of either server, Folder, Pool, or Tag view. Right now the 'Folder View' only separates VM's, containers, and storage options. Do you think if I integrated the ability of doing cascading folders, but only had it apply to the Folder view, that it would better fit your use case? I'm only asking because I want to assist the community in a meaningful way and know that folder organization is a feature that I've felt like was missing.

 

[tessus]

I would open a new issue in the forum and maybe start a poll.

As mentioned before, automatic folder structuring was not my initial feature request and I still would like to see my initial request to be implemented at one point. Although it seems that using tags is the devs' only way going forward. I am afraid folders the way I had them in mind won't be happening.

This doesn't mean your code changes are not useful for others. I would just make sure to include the devs. You probably don't want to keep a separate branch in sync forever...