[DOC] Dark Mode and other Dashboards Management / Advanced Settings are not documented

[smacrakis]

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Dark mode is not documented. This is especially important since setting/unsetting it is hidden in an obscure place (Dashboards Management / Advanced Settings / near the end of a long page).

Google search of the doc site finds Custom branding and Quickstart guide. Custom branding only talks about the config file (yaml). The Quickstart guide page doesn't even have the word "dark" in its searchable text -- it is in an image with an ALT tag mentioning Dark mode. The image text mentions setting Dark mode using "Advanced Settings", but it doesn't say that Advanced Settings are (hidden) under Dashboards Management.

Searching for [dark] in the search box finds the Custom branding page and the Exploring OpenSearch 2.10 news item.

More generally, other individual items in Advanced settings don't seem to be documented. If they'd just be listed in the Advanced Settings doc page, that would at least make them findable.

What other resources are available? Provide links to related issues, POCs, steps for testing, etc.

[hdhalter]

We decided against documenting the advanced settings for several reasons that you can find here: #4876.

We can probably be more specific about how to enable dark mode on the Quickstart guide. @vagimeli - can you work with Stavros on this? Thanks.

[vagimeli]

@smacrakis @hdhalter Dark mode is covered in the the following PR that updates the quickstart page for 2.12. #6004

[vagimeli]

@smacrakis @hdhalter The Dashboards team and I had a comprehensive advanced settings draft that the team opted to not use, and instead write a less comprehensive page. Is there a PR for revisions to the advanced settings page?

[vagimeli]

Advanced settings draft content

General settings

The following table describes the General settings:

Setting	Description
csv:quoteValues	Defines whether to Enclose values containing special characters or multiline values with a double quotation mark ". Default is On.
csv:separator	Defines whether to use a specific character or string to delimit exported values. Default is ,.
dateFormat	Defines the format for displaying dates. Default is MMM D, YYYY @ HH:mm:ss.SSS.
dateFormat:dow	Defines the day on which to start the week. Default is Sunday.
dateFormat:scaled	Defines the format for timestamps. The timestamps format changes depending on the time between measurements (hour, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds). The keys are time periods in ISO8601 format: YYYY-MM-DD.
dateFormat:tz	Defines the time zone for OpenSearch Dashboards. Default is the time zone detected by your browser.
dateNanosFormat	Defines the format for representing dates with nanoseconds. Default is MMM D, YYYY @ HH:mm:ss.SSSSSSSSS.
defaultIndex	Defines the default index for all indexes in an OpenSearch cluster. Default is null.
defaultRoute	Defines the gateway point. Use this setting to change the landing page for OpenSearch Dashboards. The setting must be a relative URL. Default is /app/home.
fields:popularLimit	Defines the number of N fields to be displayed. Default is 10.
filterEditor:suggestValues	Defines whether the filter editor suggests field values. Default is Off.
filters:pinnedByDefault	Defines whether filters are automatically pinned. Default is Off.
format:bytes:defaultPattern	Defines the default numeral format for the bytes format. Default is 0,0.[0]b.
format:currency:defaultPattern	Defines the default numeral format for the currency format. Default is ($0,0.[00]).
format:defaultTypeMap	Defines the default format name for each field type using a mapping. If the field type isn't specified, _default_ is used.
format:number:defaultLocale	Defines the language locale for numerals. Default is en.
format:number:defaultPattern	Defines the default numeral format for the number format. Default is 0,0.[000].
format:percent:defaultPattern	Defines the default numeral format for the percent format. Default is 0,0.[000]%.
histogram:barTarget	Defines a specified number of bars for date histograms that use the auto interval. Default is 50.
histogram:maxBars	Defines the maximum number of bars to show in date histograms. Default is 100.
history:limit	Defines how many of the most recent values to store in the history. Default is 10.
indexPattern:placeholder	Defines the placeholder value to use when creating index patterns.
metaFields	Enables fields that are not part of the _source field to be merged into the document. Default is _source, _id, _type, _index, and _score.
metrics:max_buckets	Defines the maximum number of buckets that a single data source can return. Default is 2000.
query:allowLeadingWildcards	Defines whether * is allowed as the first character in a query clause. Default is On.
query:queryString:options	Defines the options for the Lucene query string parser. Default is true.
reporting:useFOR	Enables or disables ForeignObject rendering for embedding of external content into reports. Default is On.
reporting:useOcr	Enables or disables optical character recognition (OCR) to be run on PRF reports. Default is Off.
savedObjects:listingLimit	Defines the number of objects to fetch when viewing a listing page. Default is 1000.
savedObjects:perPage	Defines the number of objects to display on each page of the load dialog. Default is 20.
search:queryLanguage	Defines the query language for OpenSearch Dashboards. Default is DQL.
shortDots:enable	Enables or disables the shortening of long fields. Default is Off.
sort:options	Defines the options for the sort parameter. Default is boolean.
state:storeInSessionStorage	Enables or disables the storing of URLs. Default is Off.
timepicker:quickRanges	Defines the quick-select time ranges to display in the time filter.
timepicker:refreshIntervalDefaults	Defines the time filter's default refresh interval in milliseconds. Default is 0.
timepicker:timeDefaults	Defines the default time period to analyze data. Default is Last 15 minutes.
truncate:maxHeight	Defines the maximum height of a table cell. Default is 115 pixels.

Appearance settings

Introduced 2.10
{: .label .label-purple }

The following table describes the Appearance settings:

Setting	Description
accessibility:disableAnimations	Enables or disables animations. Default is Off.
pageNavigation	Defines the navigation pane style. Default is Modern.
theme:darkMode	Enables or disables dark mode. Default is Off. Dark mode is available only in OpenSearch Dashboards version 2.10 or later.
theme:version	Defines the theme to use for the current and subsequent versions of OpenSearch Dashboards. Default is v7.

Discover settings

The following table describes the Discover settings:

Setting	Description
context:defaultSize	Defines the number of surrounding entries to show in the context view. Default is 5.
context:step	Defines the number by which to increment or decrement the context size. Default is 5.
context:tieBreakerFields	Defines the fields that are used to break a tie between document that have the same timestamp value. The first field that is present and sortable in the current index pattern is used. Default is _doc.
defaultColumns	Defines the columns that appear by default on the Discover page. Default is _source.
discover:aggs:terms:size	Defines the number of terms that are visualized when selecting the Visualize button in the field drop down. Default is 20.
discover:modifyColumnsOnSwitch	Defines whether unavailable columns are removed from a new index pattern. Default is On.
discover:sampleSize	Defines the number of rows to show in a table. Default is 20.
discover:searchOnPageLoad	Defines whether a search is run when Discover first loads. The settings does not affect loading a saved search. Default is On.
discover:sort:defaultOrder	Defines how to sort time-based index patterns. Default is Descending.
doc_table:hideTimeColumn	Defines whether to hide the Time column in the Discover application and in all saved searches on dashboards. Default is Off.
doc_table:highlight	Defines whether to highlight results in the Discover application and saved searches on dashboards. Highlighting can make it easier to find and identify results, but it can also slow down requests when working with big documents.

Notifications settings

The following table describes the Notifications settings:

Setting	Description
notifications:banner	Defines the custom banner for temporary notices to users. Supports Markdown.
notifications:lifetime:banner	Defines the duration for which banner notifications are displayed. Default is 3000000 milliseconds. Set field to Infinity to disable notifications.
notifications:lifetime:error	Defines the duration for which error notifications are displayed. Default is 300000 milliseconds. Set field to Infinity to disable notifications.
notifications:lifetime:info	Defines the duration for which information notifications are displayed. Default is 5000 milliseconds.Set field to Infinity to disable notifications.
notifications:lifetime:warning	Defines the duration for which warning notifications are displayed. Default is 10000 milliseconds.Set field to Infinity to disable notifications.

Search settings

The following table describes the Search settings:

Setting	Description
courier:batchSearches	Enables or disables how dashboard panels load. When disabled, panels load individually, and search requests end when users navigate away or update the query. When enabled, all panels load together when all data is loaded, and searches do not end. Default is Off.
courier:customRequestPreference	Enables or disables whether to use the request preference when setting is set to custom. Default is _local.
courier:ignoreFilterIfFieldNotInIndex	Enables or disables support for dashboards that contain visualizations using different indexes. When disabled, all filters are applied to all visualizations. When enabled, filters are ignored for a visualization if the visualization's index does not contain the field being filtered. Default is Off.
courier:maxConcurrentShardRequests	Defines the maximum number of concurrent shard requests that can be made for _msearch requests sent by OpenSearch Dashboards. Set it to 0 to disable the setting and to use the default value set by OpenSearch. Default is 0.
courier:setRequestPreference	Defines which shards handle your search requests. Options include Session ID, Custom, and None. Session ID restricts operations to run all search requests on the same shard and reuses shard caches across requests, which can improve performance. Custom is used to define your own preference. Use courier:customRequestPreference to customize your preference value. None means that no preference is set. This option can provide better performance because requests can be spread across all shard copies. However, results might be inconsistent because different shards might be in different refresh states. Default is Session ID.
search:includeFrozen	Enables or disables whether to include frozen indexes in search results. If enabled, frozen indexes are included in search results. Searching through frozen indexes can increase the search time. Default is Off.

Timeline settings

The following table describes the Timeline settings:

Setting	Description
timeline:es.default_index	Defines the default OpenSearch index to search with the .opensearch() function. If this setting is not set, the .opensearch() function will search all indexes. Default is _all.
timeline:es.timefield	Defines the default field that contains a timestamp when using the .opensearch() function. If this setting is not set, the .opensearch() function will be used in the @timestmap field. Default is @timestmap.
timeline:graphite.url	(Experimental) Defines the graphite host URL.
timeline:max_buckets	Defines the maximum number of buckets that a single data source can return. Default is 2000.
timeline:min_interval	Defines the minimum interval to calculate when using the auto interval. Default is 1ms.
timeline:quandl.key	(Experimental) Defines your unique identifier (API key) that allows you to access Quandl's data.
timeline:target_buckets	Defines the number of buckets that OpenSearch Dashboards attempts to use when calculating automatic intervals in visualizations. Default is 200.

Visualize settings

The following table describes the Visualize settings:

Setting	Description
visualization:colorMapping	Assigns colors to values within visualizations. Default is #00A69B.
visualization:dimmingOpacity	Defines the opacity of chart items that are dimmed when another chart element is highlighted. The lower the value, the more the highlighted element will stand out. The value must be between 0 and 1. Default is 0.5.
visualization:enablePluginAugmentation	Enables or disables access to plugin functionality through line chart visualizations. Default is On.
line chart visualizations	Defines the maximum number of associated augmentations per visualization. Default is 10. Associating more than 10 plugin resources per visualization can cause performance issues.
visualization:heatmap:maxBuckets	Defines the maximum number of buckets that a single data source can return in a heatmap visualization. A higher number of buckets can negatively impact browser rendering performance. Default is 50.
visualization:regionmap:customVectorMapMaxSize	Defines the maximum number of features that can be loaded from a custom vector map. Default is 1000.
visualization:regionmap:showWarnings	Enables or disables whether a warning is shown when terms cannot be joined to a shape on a region map. Default is On.
visualization:tileMap:WMSdefaults	Defines the default properties for the WMS map server in coordinate maps. Default is enabled: false.
visualization:tileMap:maxPrecision	Defines the maximum geohash precision that can be displayed on maps, with 7 being high, 10 being very high, and 12 being the maximum. Default is 7.
visualize:disableBucketAgg	Deactivates specific becket aggregations from visualizations. The setting takes a comma-separated list of bucket aggregation names, such as significant_terms amd terms.
visualize:enableLabs	Enables or disables experimental visualizations. If enabled, you can create, view, and edit experimental visualizations. If disabled, you can only use production-ready visualizations. Default is On.

[smacrakis]

Thanks for the info. That looks like internal settings in .kibana (which would also be nice to document). I was thinking about the settings accessible via the dashboards UI.

I don't think that these need to be mentioned in the Quickstart guide -- they just need to be findable using search (either our search or Google search).

[vagimeli]

@smacrakis Thank you for raising this need. While I'm willing to provide writing support, I'd appreciate some guidance on the specific information you've requested. Could you please provide more details or outline the key areas that need documentation? This will help ensure the documentation accurately captures the necessary information and meets the team's needs. Once I have a clearer understanding, I'll be able to assist in creating this documentation after the 2.12 release. Looking forward to your input. Thank you!

[vagimeli]

Advanced settings status: Among writing in progress, UI copy is being updated.