Error handling behaviour (frontend)

[steve-hb]

Today I started using Portainer on my local machine and started to think about the error handling regarding how to resolve errors.

For context, this issue was related to the cryptic error messages: #295

My issue shall be about the user experience when expected errors occur: expected errors, like the container is still running (which is effectively a user error)

My suggestion would be to ask the user if Portainer should resolve (specific) problems:

1. User tries to delete image - which is currently used by a container
2. Portainer receives the error from docker
3. Portainer asks the user if he wants to kill the instance(s)

This way the user can simply delete the image without getting annoyed because he has to switch to containers, search for all affected ones, stop/kill them, switch back and try again to delete the image.
Of course this is just one use case, there are a lot more use cases where UX improvements can be made without rewriting too much on the backend - if it is even necessary at all.

[huib-portainer]

Hi,

Would you expect when performing Remove > Force Remove on an image to always automatically stop any running containers that are using it? Or do you see that as an option on the regular Remove?

When you mention that there are other use cases where similar UX improvements would apply, do you have any specific scenarios in mind?

[steve-hb]

Would you expect when performing Remove > Force Remove on an image to always automatically stop any running containers that are using it?

Not directly, I would ask the user, using a popup, if he wants to stop the running containers - maybe with information about which containers are affected.

When you mention that there are other use cases where similar UX improvements would apply, do you have any specific scenarios in mind?

At the time of writing the original issue, I had 2 additional scenarios, but didn't write them down - my bad, sorry.
If I remember/find new scenarios, I'll let you know!

[huib-portainer]

Note that images can have dependencies on other images as well (#4973).