Monokle Desktop 1.6 Released

Mar 21, 2022
5 min
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Christian Lete
Product Leader
monokle

The Monokle Team at Kubeshop is proud to announce version 1.6.0 of Monokle, our open-source desktop tool to help you with all-things-related to Kubernetes manifests. 

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Get started with Monokle today

The Monokle Team at Kubeshop is proud to announce version 1.6.0 of Monokle - Manifest IDE, our open-source desktop tool to help you with all-things-related to Kubernetes manifests.

In this release, the focus was to:

  • Increase the stability of Monokle
  • Improve the UX/UI on Helm workflows
  • Handle restricted cluster access

Additionally, we introduced:

  • Helm preview configuration
  • The capability to choose the Kubernetes Schema that suits the version of your Kubernetes cluster
  • Sealed Secrets support
  • Usage/error analytics

Helm Pane Redesigned

This version brings you a redesigned version of the Helm Pane, which makes it easier to see at a glance how your Helm Charts are structured in the currently opened project:

Helm Preview Configurations

You might have noticed that, in the previous screenshot, each Helm chart has a new subsection named “Preview Configurations”. This is a new feature of Monokle which allows you to configure how to run the Helm Preview and then save the configuration in order to quickly use it at any time.

Hovering over the Preview Configurations section will show a Plus button to the right:

Clicking on the button will open a Drawer to the right:

This form allows you to:

  • Name your configuration
  • Choose and order which values files to be used for the preview
  • Choose between using the `helm template` or `helm install` commands
  • And optionally provide options for the command. See more about the options in Helm’s documentation.

Finally, you can save your configuration for later use or save it and start previewing the resources right away.

Saved Preview Configurations will show up in the subsection of the Helm chart it was created for:

By hovering over the configuration you will see the Preview, Edit and Delete actions.

If you instead click and select the configuration, the source code editor from the right will be replaced with the Helm Command pane, which will display the generated command that will be run by Monokle to create the preview:

Handling of Restricted Access to Clusters

Before the 1.6 version, Monokle assumed that users had full access to the clusters that they loaded. We’ve improved this by redesigning the Cluster Selection widget at the top of the UI:

As in the previous versions, this widget shows you the list of clusters found in your KUBECONFIG file. This can be set in settings if Monokle didn’t find it automatically, and you can select which one you want Monokle to use for loading its resources.

In addition, we now show two new columns: Namespaces and Access.

The Access column tells you if you have “Full Access” to that cluster or if we couldn’t determine access level.

When using a cluster that you know you don’t have full access to, you’ll have to hover over the cluster name and then click on the edit button to the right.

This will expand the cluster row:

Here you will be able to configure the list of namespaces to which you know you have access. Monokle will use only those namespaces when it’s fetching resources from the cluster.

Configurable Kubernetes Schema Version

Previously, Monokle was using the latest version of the Kubernetes schema for validating the content of your resources. In version 1.6, you can change the version to the one that you are using in your cluster. Go to Settings to see a new dropdown which allows you to select a different version:

Selecting a version that’s not already downloaded will show a button for downloading and using that schema:

Usage Analytics

We have added Telemetry which will help us to understand how to improve the product and the user experience. You can always deactivate it. It's described in the Telemetry Section of the documentation.

Pin Favorite Templates

In this version you can pin your favorite templates to the top of the list by clicking on the Pin icon to the right of the template name:

Sealed Secrets

Sealed Secrets are now supported by Monokle. Before 1.6, when referencing a sealed secret from a resource, the link would be shown as unsatisfied as it was expecting a vanilla Secret resource. Now, it will correctly show the link to the Sealed Secret:

Use Right-click to Open Context Menus

Now you can open the context menu for files in the File Explorer or resources in the Navigator by right clicking on the rows:

Other Notable Fixes and Improvements

  • Fixed the Deploy Resource action on Ubuntu.
  • Improved the support of GitHub URLs for installing plugins.
  • Improved search of values files in Helm chart folders.
  • Improvements to layout resizing.
  • Global zoom-in/zoom-out (in the Window menu).

As always you can download the release from GitHub and get in touch to complain or praise Monokle on our Discord Server - looking forward to hearing from you!

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