Allow a custom display name in the Wallboard/Hexagons view

[microvesalith]

Idea: Allow a Custom Display Name in the Wallboard (Hexagons) View

Would the team be open to a small enhancement of the Wallboard (hexagons) view that allows a shorter display name to be shown without changing the actual application name?

This proposal should be fully backward compatible.

Motivation

In some environments, service names follow conventions that contain a lot of repeated information. For example:

sample-abcd-service
sample-efgh-service
sample-ijkl-service

In the Wallboard view, much of the available space is used by repeated prefixes and suffixes, while the truly distinguishing part of the name occupies only a small portion of the label.

It would be useful if the Wallboard could display:

abcd
efgh
ijkl

while the actual Spring application name remains unchanged.

Why Not Simply Change the Application Name?

A custom ApplicationRegistry can already be used to modify the name returned by /applications:

@Bean
public ApplicationRegistry applicationRegistry(
        InstanceRegistry instanceRegistry,
        InstanceEventPublisher instanceEventPublisher) {
    return new CustomApplicationRegistry(
            instanceRegistry,
            instanceEventPublisher);
}

However, changing Application.name has side effects because the name is also used elsewhere in the application, including routing and navigation.

As a result, changing the name for display purposes also changes behavior.

Proposal

Add an optional display-oriented field to Application, for example:

public final class Application {

    private final String name;

    private final String displayName;

    @Nullable
    private final BuildVersion buildVersion;

    ...
}

The Wallboard could then use:

displayName if present
name otherwise

while all existing logic would continue to rely on the actual application name.

For example:

name = "sample-abcd-service"
displayName = "abcd"

The Wallboard would display:

abcd

while URLs, lookups, searches, and application details would continue to use:

sample-abcd-service

Possible Implementation

A relatively small enhancement in the Wallboard component could be sufficient:

spring-boot-admin-server-ui/src/main/frontend/views/wallboard/index.vue

Instead of:

<h1 class="application__name" v-text="application.name" />

the component could prefer displayName when present and fall back to name otherwise:

<h1
  class="application__name"
  v-text="application.displayName || application.name"
/>

Benefits

• Improves readability of large Wallboards.
• Preserves the actual application name and identity.
• Avoids breaking routing, navigation, searches, and lookups.
• Fully backward compatible.
• Optional feature with no impact on existing installations.

Would this be considered a reasonable enhancement for SBA?

[microvesalith]

I would love to submit a PR of course.