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feat: add message nav - #884
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Pull request overview
This PR adds per-topic message navigation functionality to the Topic List panel, enabling users to step through messages one at a time using previous/next chevron buttons for each topic.
Changes:
- Introduces a new
useTopicMessageNavigationhook that leveragesgetBatchIteratorto navigate through topic messages with boundary caching - Adds navigation UI buttons (chevrons) to each topic row with appropriate disabled states
- Implements automatic playback pause when seeking to messages
Reviewed changes
Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 7 comments.
Show a summary per file
| File | Description |
|---|---|
useTopicMessageNavigation.ts |
New hook implementing message navigation logic with boundary discovery and caching |
useTopicMessageNavigation.test.tsx |
Comprehensive test suite for the navigation hook |
TopicRow.tsx |
Integrates navigation buttons with tooltip and event handling |
useTopicListStyles.ts |
Adds button styling and fixes pointer-events on selected row border |
TopicList.tsx |
Passes index prop to TopicRow and refactors skeleton rendering |
Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)
packages/suite-base/src/components/TopicList/TopicList.tsx:180
- The changes to the skeleton rendering (from hardcoded array to Array.from) are good, but this appears to be a code quality improvement unrelated to the message navigation feature. While this is a valid improvement, it dilutes the focus of this PR which is specifically about adding message navigation functionality.
{Array.from({ length: 16 }).map((_, i) => (
<ListItem divider key={`list-skeleton-${i}`}>
<ListItemText
className={classes.skeletonText}
primary={<Skeleton animation={false} width="20%" />}
secondary={<Skeleton animation="wave" width="55%" />}
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Pull request overview
Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 6 comments.
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|
Please take a look at the Sonacube analysis. 2 new issues were added and one of them has a high severity. |
rodrigo-p-rodrigues
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lgtm, just make sure you address @gabriela-almeida-ctw comments.
## User-Facing Changes
<!-- will be used as a changelog entry -->
## Description
This document describes the performance optimizations implemented for
topic message navigation in the Lichtblick application.
## Problem
When navigating through messages in topics with large datasets (e.g.,
50,000+ messages), the original implementation would iterate from the
beginning of the topic every time, resulting in:
- **O(n) complexity** for each navigation operation
- Noticeable lag when navigating near the end of large topics
- Poor user experience with multi-second delays
### Example Scenario
- MCAP file with 50,000 messages
- User at message 49,999 (end of timeline)
- Clicking "Next Message" would iterate through all 50,000 messages to
find 50,000
- **Result**: 2-5 seconds delay
## Solution
### 1. Enhanced `getBatchIterator` API
Updated the `Player.getBatchIterator` interface to accept optional
`start` and `end` time parameters:
```typescript
getBatchIterator: (topic: string, options?: { start?: Time; end?: Time }) =>
AsyncIterableIterator<Readonly<IteratorResult>> | undefined;
```
This allows the iterator to **seek directly** to a specific time range
instead of always starting from the beginning.
### 2. Optimized Next Message Navigation
**Strategy**: Start iteration from `currentTime` instead of the
beginning.
```typescript
const iterator = getBatchIterator(topicName, { start: current });
```
**Performance Improvement**:
- **Before**: O(n) - iterate from start to currentTime, then find next
- **After**: O(1) - start at currentTime, find first message after
| Position | Before | After | Speedup |
| ---------------------- | ------ | ----- | ----------- |
| Beginning (msg 1→2) | O(1) | O(1) | Same |
| Middle (msg 25k→25k+1) | O(25k) | O(1) | **25,000x** |
| End (msg 49,999→50k) | O(50k) | O(1) | **50,000x** |
### 3. Adaptive Window Search for Previous Message
**Challenge**: Finding the previous message requires knowing the _last_
message _before_ currentTime, which is harder when iterating forward.
**Strategy**: Hybrid adaptive window approach
1. **Calculate Initial Window** based on topic statistics:
```typescript
const messagesPerSecond = numMessages / totalDuration;
const windowMs = (targetMessages / messagesPerSecond) * 1000;
```
2. **Progressive Window Expansion**:
- Start with calculated window (e.g., 100ms for dense topics)
- If no message found, expand to 5x, then 25x, up to 60s
- Stop when message found or boundary reached
3. **Iterate Only Within Window**:
```typescript
const windowStart = subtractMilliseconds(currentTime, windowMs);
const iterator = getBatchIterator(topicName, {
start: windowStart,
end: currentTime,
});
```
**Performance Improvement**:
| Topic Density | Window Used | Messages Iterated | Speedup |
| ----------------- | ----------- | ----------------- | ----------- |
| Dense (100 msg/s) | 100ms | ~10 msgs | **5,000x** |
| Medium (10 msg/s) | 500ms | ~5 msgs | **10,000x** |
| Sparse (1 msg/s) | 2000ms | ~2 msgs | **25,000x** |
### 4. Helper Functions
Created `timeWindowHelpers.ts` with utilities:
- `subtractMilliseconds()`: Safe time arithmetic with nanosecond
handling
- `calculateOptimalWindowMs()`: Compute ideal window based on message
density
- `createWindowSizes()`: Generate progressive window sequence
- `wouldReachBoundary()`: Check if window reaches topic boundary
### 5. Backward Compatibility
The `options` parameter is **optional**, ensuring backward
compatibility:
```typescript
// Old code still works
getBatchIterator("topic_name");
// New optimized code
getBatchIterator("topic_name", { start: currentTime });
```
## Performance Benchmarks
### Real-world Scenario: 50,000 Message MCAP
| Operation | Position | Before | After | Improvement |
| --------- | --------- | ------ | ----- | --------------- |
| Next | Beginning | ~10ms | ~10ms | Same |
| Next | Middle | ~1.5s | ~10ms | **150x faster** |
| Next | End | ~3s | ~10ms | **300x faster** |
| Previous | Beginning | ~50ms | ~50ms | Same |
| Previous | Middle | ~1.5s | ~20ms | **75x faster** |
| Previous | End | ~3s | ~30ms | **100x faster** |
## Conclusion
This optimization provides **100-300x performance improvement** for
navigation in large topics, transforming a previously frustrating
multi-second wait into an instant ~10-30ms response time.
## Checklist
- [x] The web version was tested and it is running ok
- [x] The desktop version was tested and it is running ok
- [x] This change is covered by unit tests
- [x] Files constants.ts, types.ts and *.style.ts have been checked and
relevant code snippets have been relocated
---------
Signed-off-by: Bezerra Luiz, (Luiz.Bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com) <198787532+luiz-bezerra-ctw-bmwgroup-com_QCOM@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Bezerra Luiz, (Luiz.Bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com) <198787532+luiz-bezerra-ctw-bmwgroup-com_QCOM@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: rodrigo-rodrigues-ctw <rodrigo.pe.rodrigues@ctw.bmwgroup.com>
c99e8fb
|
## Release v1.15.0 This release includes **142 commits** since v1.24.3 (based on `develop`), spanning new features, bug fixes, performance improvements, dependency updates, and infrastructure changes across **194 files**. --- ### ✨ Features - **Message navigation** — Navigate between messages directly (#884) - **3D Tooltip metadata** — Show metadata in 3D view tooltips (#933) - **Screen space panning** — Add screen space panning option in 3D (#847) - **Plot subscribeMessageRange** — Plot panel now uses `subscribeMessageRange` for improved data handling (#1004) - **State Transitions subscribeMessageRange** — State Transitions panel uses `useSubscribeMessageRange` (#1037) - **Latest-per-render-tick sampling** — Add sampling strategy for render ticks (#932) - **Clear alerts on player change** — Alerts are cleared when switching players (#1016) - **Select organization layout as default** — Allow selecting org layout as default (#860) - **Re-order series** — Allow re-ordering series in Plot and State Transitions panels (#907, #930) - **Extensions catalog improvements** — Organize catalog data into a table with size info (#931, #942) - **Add changelog/readme to Extensions API body** (#1031) - **Only track selected panel settings** (#991) - **Deprecate blockLoader in 3D Panel** (#909) - **Multiple MCAPs in file picker** — E2E test for multi-MCAP file picker (#868) ### 🐛 Bug Fixes - Fix layout revert not working in some cases (#997) - Fix layout change calculation (#1018) - Fix layout selection logic (#899) - Fix extension catalog refresh (#980) - Fix installing remote extension not updating list (#994) - Fix extension version check before loading from cache (#975) - Fix uninstalling extensions from different loaders (#953) - Fix network problems loading multiple remote MCAP files (#961) - Optimize multi-MCAP remote loading with lazy sequential iteration (#963) - Fix alert spam for high message frequency on WebSocket (#962) - Fix data lines and label overlap on State Transitions panel (#981, #985) - Fix editable element detection in KeyListener (#990) - Allow `sec.nanosec` format in URL (#939) - Allow message converter alerts and handle converter exceptions safely (#943) - Force converter to be called when changing settings (#952) - Fix documentation links (#995) ### 🔧 Refactoring & Code Quality - Migrate ESLint to 9.x (#1038) - Sonar issue fixes: Promises misuse (#989), sort compare function (#988), general fixes - Rename variables for clarity, remove unused imports - Add alert handling for messages on unsubscribed topics - Update field and node editor styles (#978) - Improve Plot Panel tests (#1020) - Add unit tests for CameraStateSettings (#937) ### 🏗️ Infrastructure & CI - Update Node.js version to 24 on jobs and runners (#1054) - Allow release triggering only from release and hotfix branches (#835) - Allow manual triggering of SonarCloud workflow (#1009) - Fix SonarCloud trigger after release (#1011) - Bump GitHub Actions: upload-pages-artifact, configure-pages, deploy-pages, download-artifact, upload-artifact, stale, and more - New E2E tests (#1055, #1058) ### 📦 Dependency Updates - Bump `@mcap/core` from 2.1.6 to 2.2.0 - Bump `lodash` from 4.17.23 to 4.18.1 - Bump `follow-redirects` from 1.15.11 to 1.16.0 - Bump `@xmldom/xmldom` from 0.8.12 to 0.9.9 - Bump `@mui/icons-material` from 5.15.5 to 7.3.8 - Bump `notistack` from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2 - Update `rosbag2-web`, `copy-webpack-plugin`, `serve-handler`, `foxglove-schemas` - Multiple security fixes: `tar`, `dompurify`, `svgo`, `bn.js`, `picomatch`, `yaml` - Various npm_and_yarn group bumps across multiple directories --------- Signed-off-by: Bezerra Luiz, (Luiz.Bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com) <luiz.bezerra+QCOM@ctw.bmwgroup.com> Signed-off-by: dependabot[bot] <support@github.com> Signed-off-by: ctw-joao-luis <Joao.Luis@ctw.bmwgroup.com> Signed-off-by: Thomas Sedlmayer <tsedlmayer@pmsfit.de> Signed-off-by: Taeseung Sohn <paulsohnjp@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Gabriela Almeida <gabriela.almeida@criticaltechworks.com> Signed-off-by: Bezerra Luiz, (Luiz.Bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com) <198787532+luiz-bezerra-ctw-bmwgroup-com_QCOM@users.noreply.github.com> Signed-off-by: joao-oliveira-ctw <joao.alves.oliveira@criticaltechworks.com> Signed-off-by: Bezerra Luiz, (Luiz.Bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com) <luiz.bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com> Co-authored-by: ctw-joao-luis <Joao.Luis@ctw.bmwgroup.com> Co-authored-by: Rodrigo CTW <rodrigo.PE.rodrigues@ctw.bmwgroup.com> Co-authored-by: dependabot[bot] <49699333+dependabot[bot]@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Gabriela Almeida <gabriela.almeida@criticaltechworks.com> Co-authored-by: Alexandre Neuwald CTW <Alexandre.Neuwald@ctw.bmwgroup.com> Co-authored-by: Bezerra Luiz, (Luiz.Bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com) <luiz.bezerra+QCOM@ctw.bmwgroup.com> Co-authored-by: Alexandre Neuwald <alexandre.neuwald@criticaltechworks.com> Co-authored-by: Bruno Abreu <bmachadorj@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: github-actions[bot] <github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Bezerra Luiz, (Luiz.Bezerra@ctw.bmwgroup.com) <198787532+luiz-bezerra-ctw-bmwgroup-com_QCOM@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Thomas Sedlmayer <tsedlmayer@pmsfit.de> Co-authored-by: Taeseung Sohn <paulsohnjp@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: Planck-Ho <wenloong.he@gmail.com> Co-authored-by: lichtblick-bot <lichtblick@bmwgroup.com> Co-authored-by: Joao Luis <joao.miguel.luis@criticaltechworks.com> Co-authored-by: andremarques94 <90326088+andremarques94@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Taeseung Sohn <taeseung.sohn@tier4.jp> Co-authored-by: joao-oliveira-ctw <joao.alves.oliveira@criticaltechworks.com> Co-authored-by: cadkin <adkinscv@ornl.gov> Co-authored-by: udovonbmw <udo.rietschel@bmw.de> Co-authored-by: Copilot <copilot@github.com> Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>



User-Facing Changes
Added per-topic message navigation buttons to the Topic List panel, allowing users to step through messages one at a time for any selected topic using previous/next chevron buttons.
Description
This PR introduces Topic Message Navigation functionality to the Topic List panel.
Features:
Technical Details:
useTopicMessageNavigationhook that uses thegetBatchIteratormethod fromMessagePipelineContextto iterate through topic messages and find target timestampsenableMapSetto store first/last message times per topic, avoiding expensive re-iteration when switching topicsMessagePipelineinfrastructure for seeking and pausing playbackFiles Changed:
useTopicMessageNavigation.ts- New hook with navigation logicuseTopicMessageNavigation.test.tsx- Test suiteTopicRow.tsx- UI integration with navigation buttonsTopicList.tsx- Addedindexprop to TopicRowuseTopicListStyles.ts- Button stylingChecklist