Show how many files are in data section in UI
It's me, the BDC guy again.
I uploaded 3000 files to a Terra workspace while testing a script that will programmatically generate TSV files from user-uploaded data.
Now, to be clear, I don't expect Terra to show me all 3000 files on the same page in the UI, but I have noticed that when it truncates the number of files to show "only" the first 1000, there is no indication how many files are actually there. This lead to some issues with some of my earlier tests as I had files in there that I forgot to delete (so, a total of 3005) and those 5 files broke a few things. If I had known there was 3005 in the bucket I'd have realised my error earlier.
I'm sure there's other uses cases where users expect to know how many files are in any given "folder" in their data section, such as when checking if the output of a workflow created as many files as expected, or where a user not comfortable with the command line just wants a quick visual check that all of their files uploaded as expected.
Could the number of files be reported for a given "folder" in Terra? Being able to see every file in there is probably not needed, as the point at which we hit the 1000 file limit, the user isn't going to comb through every file manually anyway. But I do think the number of files is an important metric to report, especially considering that interacting with the bucket using Terra's terminal beyond cping files into it isn't easy for new users.
Comments
3 comments
Hi Aisling,
Thanks for writing in about this. We were able to reproduce the exact situation you're facing. Another user also wrote in about the same issue, and I think it's worth seeing what improvements can be made here. I'll be bringing this up with the development team in the very near future.
I'll be happy to let you know if/when the UI team makes changes here.
Kind regards,
Jason
Hi,
Other user who wrote about the same issue here, in our case we are updating and uploading TSV files to add more details not found in Terra (such as phenotype information). We definitely would like to have a count of files in there, but it would also be great to have some way of grabbing a list of file names beyond mutable TSVs, as a way of quality control.
When the people adding sequencing data are not the people adding phenotypic metadata, it would be great to have a way to take stock of each separately in the UI.
Thanks,
Katie
Hi all,
As a follow-up, I want to call attention to a UI improvement that we've made in this area. Though we don't yet report the number of files you have in your bucket, we have introduced functionality that allows you to actually load all of the files within the UI. By default, the UI will display the first 1000, and give you the option to load the next batch of 1000.
If there is still a strong desire to be able to get the specific number of files in your bucket and/or folders, please let us know!
Kind regards,
Jason
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