Improvement: Improve the number of versions being displayed on the slide-in panel for extensions

[aalves08]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

If we look at the slide-in panel above, we should only be showing the latest version per major/minor + the current installed version.

This means that in the above scenario, the version labels/buttons should be:

4.1.1 , 4.1.0 (because it's the one installed), 4.0.3, 3.1.3, 3.0.3

Describe the solution you'd like

• we should only be showing the latest version per major/minor + the current installed version.
• we should "hide" the rest of the versions with a "show all" kind of action

Describe alternatives you've considered

Additional context

[github-actions]

🤖 Issue grooming analysis

This feature request is well-groomed and ready for triage. Here's the analysis against the checklist:

✅ Clear Problem Statement
The title and description clearly identify the problem: the extension slide-in panel currently shows too many version buttons. The desired behavior (latest per major/minor + current installed) is spelled out with a concrete example using Kubewarden versions (4.1.1, 4.1.0, 4.0.3, 3.1.3, 3.0.3).

✅ Acceptance Criteria
Two concrete, testable criteria are provided:

• Only the latest version per major/minor and the currently installed version are shown.
• Remaining versions are hidden behind a "show all" toggle action.

✅ Technical Details
A screenshot of the current panel is provided, and the version grouping logic is clearly described. The scope (extensions slide-in panel) is identified.

✅ Reproducibility (Feature)
A clear user flow is described: install an extension, open the slide-in panel, observe and interact with the version list.

This analysis was generated automatically based on the repository's grooming checklist.

Generated by Daily Issue Grooming · ◷

[aalves08]

@oboc-sts we need a UI/UX solution for this issue (at least design, if you agree).

We can't really be showing a "gazzillion" different version numbers here... We need to hide some under a show all kind of action or something... The tendency is for this to become bigger over time.

Thoughts?

FYI @nwmac

[oboc-sts]

If we look at the slide-in panel above, we should only be showing the latest version per major/minor + the current installed version.

This means that in the above scenario, the version labels/buttons should be:

4.1.1 , 4.1.0 (because it's the one installed), 4.0.3, 3.1.3, 3.0.3

Describe the solution you'd like

we should only be showing the latest version per major/minor + the current installed version.
we should "hide" the rest of the versions with a "show all" kind of action

Looking at the ticket, I'm trying to understand what we are trying to solve and why. In other words:

• What is the problem we are trying to solve?
• Why is this a problem?
• And for whom is this a problem for? Hint: it should fit into one of these 3 buckets: "a user / customer problem", "a system problem (e.g. scalability, performance, accessibility, usability, etc)", "a company / product problem (e.g. it doesn't align with the company values, strategy, etc)

We can't really be showing a "gazzillion" different version numbers here

Why? :)

Let's really think what the problem is and properly define it before jumping into the solution space.

P.S. Yes, we can improve that panel, yes, we can improve the list of versions, we can improve a lot of things... but if we don't know why we're doing it, the solution might miss the mark.

[aalves08]

What is the problem we are trying to solve?

Number of versions displayed is only to go up and users don't really "care" about a lot of these versions... What's interesting for them is the latest version per minor, because a bump in minor version should mean "new feature" or something similar. patch bumps should be bugs fixes.

Let's take as an example:

4.1.3, 4.1.2, 4.1.1, 4.1.0, 3.0.11, 3.0.8, 3.0.1, 3.0.0, 2.2.0, 2.1.12, 2.1.8, 2.0.0

what's interesting for the users is:

4.1.3, 3.0.11, 2.2.0, 2.1.12, 2.0.0

Why is this a problem?

Doesn't add any value to the users and only clutters the UI

And for whom is this a problem for?

For users, imho. They don't need this clutter and will only be worse with time.

We can't unpublish versions, especially because some of our customers are quite adverse to "quick" updates (they prefer stability, so only after a certain amount of time they move to the next version(s)) hence why need to keep them around in the UI but they aren't relevant as a "quick glance" thing on the side-panel

[oboc-sts]

Alright, so... let's try the following mechanics to optimize the versions we show for extensions:

• We change the heading from "Versions" to "Latest Versions" as per the design included below
• We always display the current version - it needs to be visible at all times, regardless of all the other points below
• Starting from the current version, moving backwards, we display a maximum of 2 older versions, considering ONLY the latest version per minor
• Starting from the current version, moving forward, we display ALL the newer versions (if any), considering ONLY the latest version per minor
• We hide ALL the other versions that do NOT fit the above ^ criteria under a disclosure "Show all" link as pe de design included below
  • once clicked, we remove the link and we list ALL the versions, maintaining the sorting order (newest to oldest) --> in other words, we get back to the current way we display the versions

Before

After

Styling the disclosure link

[aalves08]

@oboc-sts thank you very much for looking into this! Really appreciated it 🙇

question:

When we press Show all, do we have an action to hide them again (same look/feel as Show All), OR the Show all just "disappears"?

[oboc-sts]

• once clicked, we remove the link and we list ALL the versions, maintaining the sorting order (newest to oldest) --> in other words, we get back to the current way we display the versions

We don't have an action to hide them again (it's pointless and it almost never happens)...