Move Index Patterns documentation to top level section before Discover section

[nreese]

Index Patterns are an important part to working with Kibana. The Index Pattern docs are currently buried underneath management section because thats were they are in the UI. I think it would be better to move the Index Pattern section out from management and into its own top level subject that comes before Discover.

The Index Pattern docs should also be updated to include

• Clear relation to Elasticsearch indices and how Index Patterns are used to group Elasticsearch indices by wildcard
• Better explanation of field formatters

cc @gchaps @lukasolson

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-docs

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-app

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-app-arch

[gchaps]

This is a good idea. In running metrics, we found that Define your index pattern in the Getting Started is one of the top 10 hit docs. However, this doc is specific to using the GS.

We have another topic on index patterns, Connecting Kibana to Elasticsearch , which is in the Set Up section.

I think it would be beneficial to the reader if we combine the topics related to index patterns and make them more visible in the doc.

[nreese]

Can you provide a reason why this issue was closed?

[alexh97]

This was closed accidentally due to a bad integration with a 3rd party app (Zube). My apologies.

[KOTungseth]

@nreese we are fixing this in our doc reorg.

[gchaps]

@nreese, @alexfrancoeur I'm reworking the Discover docs now, and am would like your opinion on moving the Index Patterns section as the first topic under that section. Although not its own section, it will be less hidden than under Management. I'm a little hesitant to add a new section to an already overloaded TOC.

We also have plans to document index patterns in other areas:

• The introduction to Kibana, which is going through an update to better highlight what Kibana can do.

• The Getting Started, which is also going through an update, discusses creating index patterns.

• In Visualize, more links have been added to creating index patterns.

Let me know if you still feel a separate, top-level section is needed.

[nreese]

I think putting Index Pattern under Discover is a natural fit since Discover so closely aligns to exploring a data source and looking at documents.

Places like intro, getting started, visualize can just mention index patterns and then link to Discover section.