Dynamic textbox from kibana dataview

Elastic Stack Kibana
1

Hi community,

with directly in json embedded data a dynamic text will work like this:

{
  "$schema": "https://vega.github.io/schema/vega/v5.json",
  "data": {
    "name": "dataName",
    "values": [
      {"c1": "1", "c2": "2", "text": "TextboxText01"},
      {"c1": "1", "c2": "2", "text": "TextboxText01"},
    ]
  },

  "marks":[  
    {"type": "text",
      "encode": {
        "enter": {
          "text": {"signal": "data('dataName')[0]['text']"},
        }
      }
    },
  ]
}

The textbox shows 'TextboxText01'. But when I try to do the same with a Kibana-Dataview the procedure fails and it just doesn't show anything

{
  "$schema": "https://vega.github.io/schema/vega/v5.json",
  "data": {
    "name":"dataName"
    "url": {
      "index": "questions",
    }
    "format": {"property": "hits.hits"}
  },

  "marks":[  
    {"type": "text",
      "encode": {
        "enter": {
          "text": {"signal": "data('dataName')[0]['questionText']"}
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

Thereby 'questionText' is one field of the index 'questions'. What would be the correct expression to show one field of the index (of one row, of course) in the textbox?

2

Hi @joerg55

you're pretty close to that, just missing to access the _source path before questionText:

{
  "$schema": "https://vega.github.io/schema/vega/v5.json",
  "data": {
    "name":"dataName"
    "url": {
      "index": "questions",
      body: {
      }
    }
    "format": {"property": "hits.hits"}
  },

  "marks":[  
    {"type": "text",
      "encode": {
        "enter": {
          "text": {"signal": "data('dataName')[0]['_source']['questionText']"}
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

In general, I would recommend to avoid to specify which fields to retrieve in the search request because:

  • makes the response lighter and use less bandwidth
  • retrieve only what's needed and it's easier to debug
{
  "$schema": "https://vega.github.io/schema/vega/v5.json",
  "data": {
    "name":"dataName"
    "url": {
      "index": "questions",
      body: {
        _source: false,
       fields: ["questionText"]
      }
    }
    "format": {"property": "hits.hits"}
  },

  "marks":[  
    {"type": "text",
      "encode": {
        "enter": {
          "text": {"signal": "data('dataName')[0]['fields']['questionText'][0]"} // note here the changes
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

To debug this types of Vega issues I can recommend to open the Inspect > Vega debug > Spec panel, and copy there the full spec with values. Then paste it in the Vega playground which provides more advanced tools to debug: Vega Editor

3

@marco. Thanks a lot. I didn't think I'd ever get it right