Is it possible to implement a plugin to colorize certain rows/cells based on field values?

[hsluoyz]

Hi, I'm working on an intrusion detection system which monitors logs and want to use Kibana for UI. We want to colorize the log rows based on different critical levels.

I have already read through issues like: #335, #617, and discussions like:

• https://discuss.elastic.co/t/cell-backgroud-color-instead-of-field-text-fore-back-color/59454
• https://discuss.elastic.co/t/color-event-based-on-severity/72958/3
• https://discuss.elastic.co/t/how-to-change-text-or-numbers-color-conditionally-in-kibana-data-table/81468/4

The official solution given is to use the color formatter. However, it only highlights the text background of the field value instead of a whole cell or row, which is still difficult for human eye to distinguish those tiny colored areas from a mountain of logs.

My question is, if we want to implement a Kibana plugin to do this job, is it technically possible? Or I have to hack Kibana's source code to do it? We want to modify Kibana as little as possible, so a plugin will be better. If the plugin way is OK, can you point me out about how to implement it or which part of documentation I should look at? Thanks.

[chrisdavies]

Hi @hsluoyz, questions like this are probably better directed to our discussion boards: https://discuss.elastic.co/c/kibana?ascending=true&order=posts

But to answer your question, if you write a plugin, you can do just about anything you want. You can make Elasticsearch queries, create your own RESTful endpoints, draw anything you want in the browser, etc. So, the answer is yes. If you write a plugin, you can create any visualization you can think up and implement in JavaScript + CSS.