Monokle Desktop 1.1.0 Release Notes

Your best k8s friend Monokle is friendlier than ever! After our initial release we’ve focused on fixing bugs and improving core functionality, here comes a quick run-down!

New Resource Wizard

You can now create new k8s resources directly in the Monokle UI; start by browsing to your project folder and once opened select the “New Resource” button on top of the Navigator which opens a corresponding dialog:

The new resource will added to the Navigator and opened for editing, use the Save button at the top right to save the resource to a new file or append it to an existing one (for multi-resource manifest files).

Once a resource has been saved initially the auto-save functionality will kick in as mentioned below.

Automatic Resource Validation

Monokle now automatically validates all resources against the corresponding kubernetes 1.22.1 schemas. Resources that fail validation will show an error icon in the Navigator which can be clicked for error details.

Resource Filtering

The initial release of Monokle allowed you to filter resources on namespace only, now you can filter on a variety of properties:

• Name (with wildcard)
• Kind
• Namespace
• Labels (existence or with specific value)
• Annotations (existence or with specific value)

The filter button at the top of the Resource Navigator opens the below dialog for these settings:

Edit and Apply resources in Cluster View

When viewing resources from a cluster these are now editable allowing you to quickly make changes and apply them back to your cluster — great for making a quick fix to a resource.

Reload last folder on startup

The Settings now include an option to automatically reload the last viewed folder on startup:

Navigation History

Navigating back and forth between selected resource is now done with buttons and corresponding Alt-Left/Right keyboard shortcuts

Automatic save / validation of resources

Monokle now automatically saves any changes you make to your resources (similar to most IDEs), and updates corresponding validations and links.

Editing of kustomizations / Helm values files during preview

When previewing kustomizations or Helm Charts it is now possible to edit the previewed files and recreate the preview — instead of having to exit the preview before making the change. This makes debugging of kustomizations and Helm Charts a much smoother experience

Run Monokle from the command-line (Mac only for now)

On MacOS Monokle now automatically installs a monokle script allowing you to launch Monokle directly from your favorite terminal, optionally specifying a folder for Monokle to open.

Windows version coming up in the next release!

Minor Changes and improvements

• Hiding of empty sections in Navigator
• Scroll into view and auto-expand when selecting links and resources
• Reload Cluster and Kustomize / Helm Preview actions
• Show Resource Kind for broken links
• Check for command-line tools on startup
• Splash-screen + updated logo
• Bug fixes!

What’s Next?

The list of things we’d like to add and fix in 1.2.0 is lengthy, major planned improvements are:

• A plugin framework for adding/managing plugins that can add custom Resource Kinds to the Monokle UI (with other types of plugins coming soon after)
• A Cluster Diff mode allowing you to easily compare your local resources (files or kustomize/helm previews) to those in your cluster
• Improved support for Helm Charts and Templates
• Auto-update functionality with signed installers
• Better integration with the host OS via corresponding Electron features
• Resource refactoring functionality
• Rendering / Performance improvements

Check out the entire list on GitHub — and let us know if you’re missing something we should be adding to make your everyday life with k8s manifests and resources easier.

• Download the release on GitHub
• Check out the documentation

Monokle is brought to you by kubeshop.io

Happy days!

/Monokle-team

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