Native Filters: “Clear All” should immediately clear and apply filters without requiring Apply

[parag2131]

Bug description

In dashboards using Native Filters, clicking Clear All only resets the filter UI state but does not actually apply the change until the user manually clicks Apply Filters.

This behavior is unintuitive and leads users to believe filters are cleared, while the dashboard data remains filtered until Apply is clicked.

Environment

Superset version: 5.x / 6.0.0

Dashboard with Native Filters

Default filter behavior (no custom flags)

Steps to reproduce

Open a dashboard with Native Filters

Apply one or more filters

Click Clear All

Observe that:

Filter controls reset

Dashboard data remains filtered

Click Apply Filters

Dashboard finally updates

Expected behavior

Clicking Clear All should:

Immediately clear all applied filters

Trigger the filter application automatically

Update the dashboard data without requiring an additional Apply click

Actual behavior

Clear All only resets filter inputs

Filters are still applied until Apply is clicked

Users must perform two actions for a single intent

Why this matters

“Clear All” strongly implies a completed action

Requiring Apply after Clear All is confusing for users

This behavior differs from most BI tools and UX expectations

Causes frequent user errors and support questions

Suggested solutions (one or more)

Automatically trigger Apply when Clear All is clicked

OR provide a setting:

“Auto-apply Clear All”

OR make Clear All bypass Apply entirely

Screenshots/recordings

No response

Superset version

6.0.0

Python version

3.9

Node version

16

Browser

Chrome

Additional context

No response

Checklist

• I have searched Superset docs and Slack and didn't find a solution to my problem.
• I have searched the GitHub issue tracker and didn't find a similar bug report.
• I have checked Superset's logs for errors and if I found a relevant Python stacktrace, I included it here as text in the "additional context" section.

[dosubot]

The current behavior of Native Filters in Superset—where "Clear All" only resets the filter UI and requires a separate "Apply" click to update the dashboard—is intentional and matches the code implementation. The "Clear All" and "Apply" actions are handled separately, and there is no built-in setting or flag to make "Clear All" automatically apply the cleared filters or update the dashboard data immediately. To change this, the code in the filter bar would need to be modified so that "Clear All" also triggers the apply logic after clearing the filters. For reference, see the relevant code in the frontend: "ActionButtons" and "FilterBar".

If you want "Clear All" to immediately update the dashboard, you would need to update the handleClearAll function to also call the apply logic (handleApply) after clearing the filters. There is currently no configuration option to enable this behavior.

To reply, just mention @dosu.

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[vighneshtule]

Hi @parag2131 , I am new to the repository but I would like to work on this issue.

I have analyzed the code and plan to modify the handleClearAl function in superset-frontend/src/dashboard/components/nativeFilters/FilterBar/index.tsx. The goal is to ensure that clicking "Clear All" triggers the updateDataMask action immediately for the cleared filters.

Question: Since this change will trigger immediate updates for all cleared filters, are there any performance concerns we should be aware of for dashboards with a large number of native filters? Currently handleApply iterates and dispatches updateDataMask for each filter I plan to follow this pattern, but I wanted to check if there are any existing mechanisms for batching these updates that I should utilize instead.

Please assign this issue to me.

[sadpandajoe]

Agree that this is intended behavior. The native filters themselves require you to select something and then click apply. I could see the working model is that someone sets a bunch of filters, you’d want to clear all, select yours and then click apply.

I think this change in behavior probably needs more discussion before implementing

[vighneshtule]

Hi everyone 👋
I’ve raised a PR #36882 to fix issue #36876 related to the “Clear All” behavior in Native Filters, where the UI reset didn’t dispatch updates to the Redux store and left dashboards in a desynchronized state.
What the PR fixes:
“Clear All” now nullifies all active filters
Dispatches updateDataMask immediately
Charts reload right away with unfiltered data
“Apply” button is correctly disabled when there are no pending changes
The PR includes before/after demos and testing steps.
👉 Please review PR #36882 and merge if everything looks good. Thanks!

[sfirke]

Per the comment from @sadpandajoe , maybe we could discuss at the next Superset town hall? A meeting open to anyone. That's this Friday.

Also the most important part to me of this original post is:

This behavior differs from most BI tools and UX expectations

I would be inclined to say, whichever is the best practice UX pattern generally and in BI applications specifically, I'd give that a lot of weight. I wonder if @kasiazjc has thoughts.

[sfirke]

I added it to the agenda for Friday's meeting: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WNtQhrJLCN59tc6FDI2iq4W-aoS6CISCo6S7hHgGMpM/edit?tab=t.0

[rusackas]

General opinion: it's fine to make the change and clear all filters.... just add a mention of it in UPDATING.md.

[kasiazjc]

Per the comment from @sadpandajoe , maybe we could discuss at the next Superset town hall? A meeting open to anyone. That's this Friday.

Also the most important part to me of this original post is:

This behavior differs from most BI tools and UX expectations

I would be inclined to say, whichever is the best practice UX pattern generally and in BI applications specifically, I'd give that a lot of weight. I wonder if @kasiazjc has thoughts.

So, from a user perspective, they're all just filters - so clicking "Clear All" should clear everything and get them back to a clean slate (even though we have apply button that only applies to native filters). Having to manually remove cross-filters one by one after clicking "Clear All" is confusing and breaks the expected behavior. This is also standard UX across analytics tools where "Clear All" means all filters.