Visualizations exported in old format

[dibyadas]

Kibana version:6.2.4

Elasticsearch version:6.0+

Server OS version:From elastic.co

Browser version:Firefox 60

Browser OS version:

Original install method (e.g. download page, yum, from source, etc.):From elastic.co

Describe the bug:
While exporting visualizations or dashboards from Kibana, it seems that it is being exported in the old format. What I mean is, the way it was before 6.x.x, i.e, before the removal of multiple mapping types, even though by doing es.search('.kibana') shows that the data is present in the new format (type='doc').

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a visualization and export it
2. Compare it against the data present under .kibana index

Actual behavior:
{ "_id": "my-vis-id", "_type": "visualization", "_source": { "title": "my-vis-title", "visState": "{\"title\":.....}", "uiStateJSON": "{}", "description": "", "version": 1, "kibanaSavedObjectMeta": { "searchSourceJSON": "{\"index\":\....}" } } }
Expected behavior:
{ ' _id': 'visualization:my-vis-id, '_type': 'doc', '_source': { 'type': 'visualization', 'visualization': { 'description': '', 'kibanaSavedObjectMeta': {'searchSourceJSON': '{"index":"...}'}, 'title': 'my-vis-id', 'uiStateJSON': '{}', 'version': 1, 'visState': '{"aggs"...}'}} }
And this is indeed what is found under .kibana index.

Screenshots (if relevant):

Errors in browser console (if relevant):

Provide logs and/or server output (if relevant):

Any additional context:

[chrisdavies]

I suspect this is really an implementation detail. Theoretically, exported files can be of any format, provided the import correctly handles them and gets them back into the index correctly.

[dibyadas]

Agreed. But I guess it is more sensible to export it in the format the way it exists in ES index. And one compelling reason for me to say so is that, what if I have to directly push the exported visualization, with some modifications, to .kibana since there's no API available to us to create visualization/dashboard programmatically and update it? (In fact, this is exactly what I'm trying to do currently)

[alexfrancoeur]

@dibyadas there is a new experimental API documented here that would allow for programmatic CRUD capabilities for saved objects (including index patterns).

@chrisronline does #17426 resolve this issue from the UI perspective?

[dibyadas]

@alexfrancoeur Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, the ELK stack was recently updated and the Kibana version we have now is 6.2.4 where this experimental API seems to be absent. Also, since it's experimental, which means that it will(?) go through a lot of breaking changes and may even be removed in the future(?), as mentioned. Hence, right now, pushing directly to .kibana seems a better option to me rather than using this API.
Also, I'm really hoping for an official API to be released that would allow us to create visualization/dashboards/index-pattern programmatically.

[chrisronline]

@alexfrancoeur I'm not seeing any UI-specific issue discussed here? With that said however, I don't think any of my changes in #17426 will address this

[alexfrancoeur]

@dibyadas actually, the API was there in 6.2.4. We introduced this initially in 5.5 (#11632). We've made some tweaks through the minors but you should be able to utilize the API in your current version. Yes this is experimental and it's possible there will be breaking changes to come, but it will be the API we are moving forward with for this use case.

That being said, I think it's fine writing directly to the .kibana index today, however we will be making some changes that may affect accessing the .kibana index depending on your environment. For more detail on those changes, please read up on #18178

@chrisronline thank you. I had assumed initially that While exporting visualizations or dashboards from Kibana, it seems that it is being exported in the old format. referenced the UI specifically. That may not have been the case.

[flash1293]

By now exporting visualizations is done in a standardized format.