Access policy (role): Highlight the correct role in the drop-down

[oas777]

When opening the drop-down for "role", it's always the first role in that list highlighted in blue - not the role currently selected. That's not good.

2025-08-20.08-24.Bildschirm.OC.Studio.webm

[EnsiyehE]

Hi Olaf,

I looked into the issue where the dropdown for “role” always highlights the first role in the list instead of the currently selected one. At first, I thought this was a UI problem, but after checking the code, I found that we filter the dropdown options with this function:

filterRoles(roles, policies)....

This means we remove any roles that are already used in the ACL policies to avoid duplicates. Because of that, the currently selected role isn’t in the dropdown list at all, so the component highlights the first available role instead.

This seems to be the reason why the behavior looks wrong. I can change it so that the currently selected role is added back into the dropdown options when editing, so the user can see what they already have selected.

@Arnei , does this make sense as the intended behavior, or should we include the current role in the dropdown when editing?

[oas777]

Thanks for looking into this, @EnsiyehE - I didn't realise the role wasn't actually in the list. If we (have to) keep it like that, I would suggest to remove the highligh - but let's hear what @Arnei has to say first.

[mtneug]

IMO what is selected by default is a preference and not a hard rule. However, I think it is strange that the current value can no longer be found in the list. The filtering makes sense in general, but I would also say that adding the current value after filtering (or skipping it during the filter process) makes sense.

[oas777]

Maybe not a rule, but there must be some strong (UX/UI) recommendations for this: If the selected value is part of the list, that value should be highlighted:

[Arnei]

Having the current role also show in the dropdown and having it highlighted in some fashion seems very reasonable to me. We are already doing this for e.g. the language selector in the event metadata, so we probably want similar behaviour here.

I have no hard opinion on whether the current role should also be initially focused in the dropdown, or if focusing the first element in the dropdown is better. Would need to look into the UX and accessibility concerns.

As an aside, we probably still want to keep other set roles beside the current role out of the dropdown, I think? So if I my UI looks like this

I should find "ROLE_ADMIN" highlighted in the open dropdown (which is not how ui the currently works), but not find "ROLE_ANONYMOUS" (which is how the ui currently works).

[EnsiyehE]

Hi Arnei,

Could you please clarify a bit more about not showing irrelevant roles in the dropdown?

I noticed that in the second dropdown I cannot see ROLE_ANONYMOUS, and I’m not sure how to determine which roles are relevant or irrelevant, as I’m still quite new to the project.

Also, if the dropdown is private, the role that is already chosen does not appear in the dropdown options — is that the expected behavior? or it should be shown and back ground changed as blue focused , in the way the ui is focusing on the first option right now

Thank you for your help!

Best regards,
Ensiyeh

[EnsiyehE]

Hello Team,
@oas777
@Arnei

I have implemented the proposed changes: in each row, the dropdown still displays the currently selected option, and the second dropdown hides the already chosen role (ACL role), as expected.

My question is regarding accessibility: do you agree that the initial focus should be on the currently selected role, or should it behave differently?

Best regards,
Ensiyeh Esfandiari

[oas777]

My question is regarding accessibility: do you agree that the initial focus should be on the currently selected role, or should it behave differently?

My two cents: On the selected role. But then, I don't understand why there are two roles highlighted in (different shades of) blue in your preview. And I remember that I'm neither a UX/UI expert nor experienced with the Admin UI. So I let @Arnei take over.

[Arnei]

But then, I don't understand why there are two roles highlighted in (different shades of) blue in your preview

Dark blue signifies the selected element, light blue signifies the element that is currently in focus (e.g. last element hovered by your mouse).

My question is regarding accessibility: do you agree that the initial focus should be on the currently selected role, or should it behave differently?

I don't have a hard opinion on which element should be in focus when first opening the dropdown. I'd lean towards initially focusing the first element, simply because that would be consistent with how our dropdowns behave elsewhere.