Skip to content

Conversation

@Pnkcaht
Copy link
Contributor

@Pnkcaht Pnkcaht commented Jan 27, 2026

What was happening

The log viewer currently offers two separate modes: auto-follow and manual scroll.

In practice, this causes frequent UX issues:

  • When auto-follow is enabled, scrolling up to inspect earlier logs is interrupted as soon as new logs arrive
  • Users must manually toggle modes to inspect logs safely
  • If auto-follow is left enabled, the view jumps to the bottom and context is lost
  • If auto-follow is disabled and forgotten, new log output can go unnoticed

This results in a frustrating experience when inspecting long or fast-updating logs, especially during running pipelines.

Related issue

Closes #5971

What this PR changes

This PR simplifies log following behavior by making it scroll-position aware instead of mode-based.

  • Logs automatically follow new output only when the user is already scrolled to the bottom
  • As soon as the user scrolls up, auto-follow is disabled
  • When the user scrolls back to the bottom, auto-follow resumes automatically
  • No manual toggle or mode switching is required

Why this approach

Scroll position is the most reliable signal of user intent.

Previously, auto-follow was controlled by explicit modes, which required constant manual interaction and were easy to forget.
By deriving auto-follow state from the scroll position:

  • User intent is respected automatically
  • Context is preserved when inspecting older logs
  • New output is not missed when returning to the bottom
  • The UI becomes simpler and more predictable

Implementation overview

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant UI as Log Viewer
    participant Stream as Log Stream

    Stream->>UI: new log lines
    UI->>UI: check scroll position

    alt user is at bottom
        UI->>UI: autoFollow = true
        UI->>UI: scroll to bottom
    else user scrolled up
        UI->>UI: autoFollow = false
        UI->>UI: preserve scroll position
    end

    User->>UI: scrolls back to bottom
    UI->>UI: autoFollow = true
Loading

Tests

No automated tests were added.

@6543 6543 added ui frontend related enhancement improve existing features labels Jan 27, 2026
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

enhancement improve existing features ui frontend related

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

[UX]/[UI] Make follow logs dynamic

2 participants