Why multiple group tabs?

[chrisgoringe]

I was reading through the discussions on how to best show multiple group tabs in a single controller, and I suddenly asked myself "why?"

Only one group gets shown at a time. What do the other tabs actually mean? You can click on them to show that group. But if you only have one group tab you can click on it and select any group from the dropdown.

So what is actually gained by having a second tab?

[LukeG89]

That depends on how you want to organize your Controllers and how many groups you have in your workflow.

Tabs can be useful in many cases, to have a category of groups all in one place for example.

But if you only have one group tab you can click on it and select any group from the dropdown.

As I said back then when I proposed group buttons, a dropdown list to select a group is not really convenient. It's easier to use when the list is short, but with many groups (@JorgeR81 workflows 😅) the list can become pretty caothic.

In short: easy switch and better organization.

and I suddenly asked myself "why?"

What brough you to this existential question? 😆

[chrisgoringe]

OK, I guess I tend to use fewer groups :).

I'm just trying to weigh the relative benefits of different features for 1.6 and beyond. Every new option takes time to implement, and introduces more complexity for future debugging!

[LukeG89]

Controller can be more complex than that?! 😆

Let's wait for your priority list then! 😃

[JorgeR81]

I'm just trying to weigh the relative benefits of different features for 1.6 and beyond. Every new option takes time to implement, and introduces more complexity for future debugging!

Yes, I agree that we need an "Endgame". A final vision for what the Controller GUI should be.
We shouldn't add feature after feature, with no clear direction, on how the GUI should look.

The basic functionality for the Controller it's already there.
But for the Controller to deal with any type of workflow, it needs 3 more complex features:

• [ Feature ] [edit: option to] show group buttons in multiple rows ( like before [edit: but better] ) #303
• [ Feature ] Convert numeric switches ( Impact Pack ) to Combo box #393
• [ feature ] Controller blueprints #317

After that, I don't think it needs to get more complex.

Now that ComfyUI has nested groups, I think groups tabs would be even more essential to translate that into the Controller.
The multiple rows are necessary, to get visual feedback on the bypass state and to give more space for better group names.

About the switches, the combo box in the Controller it's necessary, because we don't have the same visual feedback of the node's graph,
as I mentined there. We can't depend on a specific type of switch, from another custom node, like the Trung0246 switch.
The Impact Pack switch it's also a custom node, but it's a simpler, more "standard" implementation, from a member of Comfy.org.
So if ComfyUI ever gets a native switch, it will be like that.

Controller blueprints are also necessary because we can use the same workflow to do different things, and that may require different Controller layouts. Blender already has something similar and it works well.
Even just for creating images with different aspect ratios, we could use different Controller configurations, to optimize space, and get a larger preview.