[Feature Request] Default config file

[lrebeloFCA]

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When setting up a Graph Explorer instance, it would be good if we could have a default config file so there was no need for users to customise their Graph Explorer app.

Preferred Solution

Implement this when setting up the Graph Explorer server

[kmcginnes]

@lrebeloFCA Thanks for the feedback! I think this is a good idea. I've had similar thoughts.

We already support having a default connection through environment values. But I suspect most users want more, such as shared styles, settings, prefixes, etc.

We'll have to be mindful about how we implement these. A static shared config is a great starting point, but I believe users will want to customize these same config values which means we'd need to allow overriding the value with a local value. Then a user may want to reset back to the shared defaults. And how do we handled changes to this shared config file inside of graph explorer. How do the updated settings get merged with the users overrides?

In the case of a shared style, should the user have the option of reseting to the shared style and the app default style? For shared prefixes should the user be allowed to delete a prefix?

In order to avoid all of these default management style questions, I lean toward an import/export strategy. We do this for connections now, but we should also do this for styles. Then a user can share a set of styles with another user. That user can import them in to their graph explorer local database and modify them to be whatever they like. The largest hurdle to this approach is conflict resolution if a style is already defined at the time of import.

• [Roadmap] Persisted and Shared User Settings #689

[lrebeloFCA]

Thanks for the reply Kris. Our use case is that we provide Graph Explorer as a service to multiple users. These users are not necessarily very tech-savvy so it would be good to pre-configure the nodes and edges styling.

In my opinion, I think the import/export strategy is the best option, as you have outlined.