Feature Request: Add Docker Compose File Creation and Management to Docker Desktop GUI

Docker Desktop
1

Hello Docker Team,

I would like to suggest a feature enhancement for Docker Desktop that I believe would greatly improve the user experience: integrating Docker Compose file creation and management directly into the Docker Desktop GUI.

Why This Feature Would Be Valuable:
  1. Ease of Use:
  • While the freedom of using console commands is unique and powerful, many users—especially those new to Docker—would benefit from a GUI-based approach to creating and managing docker-compose.yaml files.
  • A graphical interface would reduce the learning curve for new users and make Docker Desktop more accessible.
  1. Improved Workflow:
  • Users could visually define services, environment variables, volumes, networks, and other configurations directly within Docker Desktop.
  • This would eliminate the need to switch between a text editor and the terminal, streamlining the workflow.
  1. Enhanced Collaboration:
  • Teams could use Docker Desktop to collaboratively manage Compose files, making it easier to share and understand container configurations.
  1. Consistency:
  • Docker Desktop already provides a GUI for managing containers, networks, and volumes. Adding Compose file management would make the app feel more complete and consistent.
Suggested Features:
  • Compose File Editor:
    • A built-in editor with syntax highlighting for creating and editing docker-compose.yaml files.
    • Templates for common use cases (e.g., Node.js apps, databases, etc.).
  • Visual Service Configuration:
    • A drag-and-drop interface to define services, ports, environment variables, and volumes.
  • Compose File Validation:
    • Real-time validation to ensure the YAML syntax and configuration are correct.
  • Deployment Management:
    • Buttons to deploy (docker compose up), stop (docker compose stop), and remove (docker compose down) stacks directly from the GUI.
Conclusion:

I believe this feature would make Docker Desktop even more powerful and user-friendly, especially for developers who prefer GUI-based tools or are new to containerization. It would align with the concept of a “desktop app” by grouping essential Docker Compose commands under a graphical interface.

Thank you for considering this suggestion, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Best regards,
Panos

2

Thank you for the feature request! Could you also share it in the roadmap?

We can discuss features witth the community and even Docker staff members come here sometimes, but the best place to share a feature request is the roadmap on GitHub.

My personal opinion (which means nothing) is that I don’t see how it could be properly implemented in the desktop app, since a compose file can contain a lot of parameters and even Portainer supports only editing a compose file as a yaml.

By the way, if that helps, you can install the Portainer extension in Docker Desktop. Then you can use Docker Desktop’s GUI to access the GUI of Portainer without switching to a web browser.

3

Docker Desktop is designed to be a development tool. Developers usually prefer to work with yaml files in their IDE, instead of clicking UIs. Most IDEs have a Docker extension/plugins that supports compose files that do schema validation and auto-completion. Furthermore, developers will want their compose file to be store in a git repo (or whatever version control system they use).

I don’t think it’s a feature the target audience would actually use. I can see how this feature would be valuable for non-developers that try to use Docker Desktop for 24/7 operation. Docker Desktop was never designed for this, docker-ce on Linux is!