Within the visual topology, node.name is the user-defined name of a node
while node.id is the unique identifier for it.
Please see open-topology.js line 159-165.
As you can see there, the label content for each entity in topology is
taken from node.desc, and if empty - then it takes it from node.name.
If user didn't change/edit node name on the left dashlet, then this is
displayed in the label on topology:
"OF|00:00:00:00:00:00:00:02" - which in the dashlet on the left is the id
(and the name is displayed as None there), and in the topology it is the
name. Very confusing... And user doesn't have description field at all in
the left dashlet.

From user's perspective, they are displayed next to each other on same
screen, and since they both display the same entities (switches) with
same id/name, there is no reason to treat them differently - they should
be consistent with each other.