Kibana: What's Cooking

Haven't upgraded Kibana lately? You might be missing out on some neat stuff! A lot has changed in Kibana and new panels are only half the story. The entire system behind querying has been refactored to provide consistent colors and legends across the entire dashboard. Interfaces have been standardized and many functions have been modified to provide simpler, faster and more powerful functionality. Let's take a deeper look at some of the recent developments.

Terms panel- Global colors, aliases and queries - Filters.

Terms panel; Global colors, aliases and queries; Filters.

New Query Input

The new query panel replaces the 'stringquery' panel as your method for inputting queries. Gone are the individual query inputs for each panel. You can still specify specific queries for specific panels, but you enter them here first, optionally assigning an alias and color, then select them from within the panel editor. Queries can also be pinned to a collapsable section when not being actively modified.

kibana-3-new-query-input.png

Assigning Queries to panels

Assigning queries to panels has been greatly simplified. Queries can be toggled on/off from the panel editor and even if the underlying query is updated or filtered, the alias will remain consistent. You may also notice that settings windows have been segmented into a tabs to provide a cleaner configuration interface.

kibana-3-assigning-queries-to-panels.png

Custom colors and aliases

When you assign a color to a query it is instantly reflected on every panel, and the same goes for aliases, which are used as legend values. This makes it easy to assign color variations in logical groups that make sense for your dashboard and data.

kibana-3-custom-colors-aliases.png

Hello Terms!

A new terms panel has been introduced that represents top field values in 3 unique fashions: pie charts, bar charts and tables. All have click-to-filter functionality that integrates with the new filtering panel.

kibana-3-terms.png

filtering panel?

Caught that in the last section, did you? Sharp eye! Filters! Filters allow you to drill down into the dataset without modifying your queries. They can also be removed, toggled and edited at will. Filters have 3 modes.

  • must: Records must match this filter
  • mustNot: Records must NOT match this filter
  • either: Records must match one of these filters.

kibana-3-filtering-panel.png

Fields list and micropanel

The fields panel has been integrated with the table panel. Field lists are now populated by reading the Elasticsearch /_mapping endpoint. Note that you may need to update your proxy to reflect this change. The field list is now collapsable to save space and new charts have been added to the micropanel.

kibana-3-fields-list-micropanel.png

Hey, whats with the color scheme?!

kibana-3-screenshot.png

There you go, spotting changes before I can explain! Kibana now allows you to switch between light and dark color schemes to better fit your environment and preferences.

That about sums it up! Of course Kibana is constantly evolving so be sure to watch this space, star the github repo, and follow @rashidkpc and @elasticsearch on Twitter. Cheers!