But it’s not just about the looks. We’ve also reworked how the Exchange functions. While it may seem familiar on the surface, months of careful refactoring and updates have gone into improving your experience.
Here are some of the changes:
Login and signup using Google SSO
Two-factor authentication support
Improved search
Dark theme
Option to subscribe to package updates (email notifications for new versions)
Option to subscribe to new packages (email notifications for newly published packages)
Markdown support for package descriptions
Also, if you’ve run into package validation issues before—those should be a thing of the past now.
Another key change: old packages that were only compatible with Checkmk 1.6 and had no contact details have been moved to the archive. They’re still accessible for reference, but since they haven’t been updated in about five years, they’re no longer in the main catalogue. For packages with contact details, I’ll be reaching out to their owners in the coming weeks to discuss the next steps.
One reason for deprecating these older packages is that they’re now two API versions behind. Speaking of which—we’ve also completed the DevAPI documentation and updated the examples, thanks to @mschlenker . There will also be a Community Call to go over the new Developer APIs, so stay tuned!
Hope you like the new Exchange and find it useful for sharing your packages with others!
Thank you for letting us know about the descriptions and the file count, looking into it.
About the search – currently it is improvement of the search in a more specific sense, so just the search itself. But I hear you about the categories, it is a good suggestion for the Exchange.
Normally you want to filter for the version for instance. That only MKPs are shown that are compatible with your used CMK.
At the moment this problem is very urgent as you already can say 2.2 addons can work with 2.3 but will not work with 2.4 and the same will also be the case for 2.3 can work with 2.4 but don’t need.
Hey Robert,
Ideally, how would this work? Would you want that the URL always gets updated with the URL from the latest uploaded/approved MKP? Or would you rather be able to edit it manually?
Both would mean that the manually edited URL of a package gets overwritten once you upload a new MKP to that package.
Lets start with the ability to manually edit the URL. I will create a ticket and see if we can get it done some time this week.
Is the CTRL - K foreground popup automagical search as soon as you type, on purpose differently to the regular search?
Some suggestions:
Change package date in listing to last update, not first upload. Gives false impression that package is old and possibly not maintained. Alternatively show both last update and first upload dates.
About the first one, I think it says uploaded on and represents the date of uploading the version that is described? If I am wrong in understanding – please clarify a bit
About the date of upload of the first version vs. the newest one – I will add this into a list of possible improvements, as well as the versioning (common feedback which makes a lot of sense), thank you!
I see Update on: 15 jun 2023 on the left.
But if I check the Uploaded on dates to the right of all the 5 uploaded versions, none have the same date as what is stated on the left. So, I don’t understand the logic of that Update on date.
I would assume it should reflect the date of the last uploaded version: 14 oct 2024.
So if you see the logic of the shown date, I’m curious what it is.
Edit: checked some other packages, but the random 3 others all have different date on the left compared to the uploaded versions to the right.
And I had another question ‘hidden’ in my post, regarding the ‘hidden’ search functionality triggered by CTRL - K.
Regarding the dates. The date on the “Version” is the upload date of that version.
The date on the left “Updated on” is the date of the last change of the package. That could be a change of the description, icon. Basically anything. Maybe it is better to make this the upload date of the latest version?
And regarding the search. “CTRL-K” opens up the search that is accessible in the header. This search works a bit differently than the one on the /packages pages. We are currently looking in to the possibility of unifying the functionalities.
The date on the left “Updated on: 15 Jun 2023” cannot be correct because the last MKP in the example was uploaded on “14 Oct 2024”.
Based on what you’ve said, the date should show “14 Oct 2024”, which is either the last upload date or the last modification of the description after the last mkp upload.
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