[Discuss] Simplify code example usage, remove "View in Console"

[cjcenizal]

The impetus behind this proposal is multi-faceted:

• I can't seem to get "View in Console" to work for me ("View in console" links not working as expected in Elasticsearch Reference[5.0] kibana#9396 describes my experience)
• As a workaround to this feature, I can copy the example, navigate to Console and paste it in
• If this feature is this difficult to use and the workaround is so simple, then is the feature worth it?

I suggest that we can simplify the user experience and deliver the same value by removing this feature, adding "cURL" as one of the language options, and presenting a single "Copy" button that will copy the content of the example in whichever language it's presented in. Users can paste it wherever they want to use it

Current

Proposed

CC @nik9000 @debadair @111andre111

[cjcenizal]

If we have any usage statistics on the "Open in Console" feature that show that it sees heavy use then I think we should keep it.

[debadair]

Given that much of our docs traffic is driven from search links deep into the ES reference, “View in Console” makes a lot of assumptions that aren’t very user friendly. Everybody understands copy-paste.

When there was just Console & cURL, the dual links made sense & were convenient. With more flavors of examples, one consistent copy-paste mechanism for what’s visible makes a lot of sense.

I agree that we should check the click traffic, but conceptually, this feels like the right thing to do.

[nik9000]

We get a couple of thousand hits to view in console a week. I isn't a ton, but it isn't nothing.

I'd love to have less stuff to support though.

[nik9000]

We get a couple of thousand hits to view in console a week. I isn't a ton, but it isn't nothing.

This is something like .3% of the docs traffic. I've always like the View in Console links for some reason.

I think I've talked myself out of my objections to including Copy as cURL as a cURL language. One interesting change this'll make is that there will always be a language picker, even on old versions of the docs which don't support client languages. Right now only master supports client languages, but at some point, I think we should bring it back to all of the 7.x branches. Mostly because I think we should bring it back to the most recent 7.x release and it isn't any harder to just do it for all of them. At that point the drop down will be so common it is ok.

[dedemorton]

One unmeasurable benefit of having the link is that it helps users make a connection between the console and the syntax they see for curl commands in the docs. Perhaps the benefit is too minor to be of concern...but figured it was worth pointing out. If the link is fragile, it probably does more harm than good, tho.

[111andre111]

Just still to add here what I discuss with CJ:
Being a customer I have used this feature a lot.
But in theory if this feature produces too much overhead...
In my opinion this is just too bad documented.
Even less people I think know about the possibility that you can just copy the curl and then paste the whole string to kibana dev console and it get converted to the dev console request, that would be at least a workaround, which whould be documented better too.

And that the view in console is configurable for changing the host and port to another matching configuration is unknown for lots of people too.

[cjcenizal]

CC @jloleysens since this involves Console.

[debadair]

I agree with the points @111andre111 makes above--if we decide to keep View in Console, we need to do a better job of highlighting its usefulness and configurability. And even if we don't, we need to make a clearer connection between "Console" and the Dev Console in Kibana.

When it was View in Sense, that was at least a unique name for a standalone Elastic-related tool. Console is a very generic, much-overloaded term--I suspect a lot of folks have no idea what console we're talking about. As @dedemorton pointed out, highlighting that connection in some fashion is desirable.

Would it be possible to have a different tooltip for a generic "Copy" link that provided a bit more info depending on the selected language, for example "Copy example for Kibana Dev Console"?

[nik9000]

Would it be possible to have a different tooltip for a generic "Copy" link that provided a bit more info depending on the selected language, for example "Copy example for Kibana Dev Console"?

If we had a generic copy link we could certainly do that.