Updated dashboard MOTD config options?

Feature Requests and Roadmap Discussion
1

tl;dr: Can we add MOTD config handling variables to the modern ondemand.d directory yamls?

The selection and physical layout of the major elements of the dashboard – arguably one of the most important dashboard configurations – is handled on by ondemand.d directory yamls (along with other majors like the dashboard title and logo), and a new admin might logically expect all appearance-related options to be found there.

…but the MOTD configuration feels forgotten under /etc/ood/config/apps/dashboard/env and doesn’t seem to have a “native” yaml equivalent. The config/apps/ nesting makes sense enough if you develop your own widgets and are familiar with managing views up in there; but the motd just … feels different.

Of course, right after I posted this, I figured out what was wrong with my attempts at hacking up a pun_custom_env config as suggested by the “!Note” at the top of the ondemand.d doc. But I’d still prefer we elevate some bespoke native variables.

# /etc/ood/config/nginx_stage.yml

# correct yaml (dictionary) formatting:
pun_custom_env:
  MOTD_PATH: "/common/conf/motd"
  MOTD_FORMAT: "text"

# incorrect yaml (sequence, but not) formatting:
pun_custom_env:
  - MOTD_PATH: "/common/conf/motd"
  - MOTD_FORMAT: "text"

Also, this seemed to only work when placed in /etc/ood/config/nginx_stage.yml, as opposed to an arbitrary /etc/ood/config/ondemand.d/* yml file.

2

I totally agree that the MOTD would be much better located within the Dashboard configuration files.

If this were to to happen, I would also request that the MOTD be a per-profile configuration option, so each profile could potentially have its own feed.

3

Hi @jasonbuechler and @anderss,

I have created two GitHub issues from your suggestions. Thanks for submitting them and considering how OOD could improve with MOTD!

4

Thank you @moffatsadeghi !