Dev tools application

[epixa]

We should create a "dev tools" application in Kibana core that allows plugins to register tools that are really only appropriate for advanced and debugging functionality such as profiling. The individual plugins would still control all of the functionality of the tools, but they'd register themselves with the dev tools app and be listed under it rather than each of them having their own sidebar link.

Console should be moved under this dev tools app instead of having a top level link.

The whole "plugins register with the dev tools app" functionality should be similar to the way plugins can register with the upcoming management app that's being created in #7135.

The exactly experience of the dev tools app should differ slightly from management in that there will not be an overview page. Instead, clicking on dev tools will bring you to console by default, and then all other dev tools will show up as siblings in the nav. This would be similar to how your browser dev tools work, for example.

[epixa]

/cc @polyfractal

[epixa]

@uboness Do you think we should break the dev tools app by product like we're doing with management or just leave it as a clean slate? I prefer the latter at the moment since I don't envision the dev tools exploding in number (e.g. > 10) in the short term.

[uboness]

I prefer the latter at the moment since I don't envision the dev tools exploding in number (e.g. > 10) in the short term.

++ on keeping clean slate for now. It'd be strange to have only ES category there at the moment. I think calling the profiler "Search Profiler" pretty much says it's for ES. And console... well, for now it's just for ES but surely later on it'll be for Kibana & LS as well

[polyfractal]

++ for clean slate as well. I think it'll be quite a while before we have enough tools to justify more internal classification.

[polyfractal]

Friendly poke, any status update? :)

[lukasolson]

I've created a dev-tools registry that allows you to register dev-tools with a similar API to the management interface:

// in your main app file
uiExports: {
  devTools: ['plugins/console/console']
}

// in plugins/console/console.js
import devTools from 'ui/registry/dev_tools';
devTools.register(() => ({
  order: 1,
  name: 'console',
  display: 'Console',
  url: '#/dev_tools/console'
}));

The problem is that now, the files for the app are included from a different scope... Before, they were being loaded completely separately to the Kibana app... and now, because they are a registry and treated the same as other registries (chromeNavControls, managementSections, etc.) the files of the app are included from the scope of the Kibana app itself. For example, when I require('ace'); I'm no longer getting the ace defined in console/public/webpackShims/ace, but rather the ace in /webpackShims/ace which is causing problems (and not just for this library).

I'm working through resolving these issues... @polyfractal If you want to take a look and see what you'd need to do, you can take a look at the feature/dev-tools branch in my fork.

[polyfractal]

Awesome, thanks for the update! I'll take a look at your branch and see if I can start to make my code compatible.

[clintongormley]

@lukasolson are we likely to see this for beta1? I'm just hoping we can get the profile UI in before feature freeze

[polyfractal]

@lukasolson Did DevTools happen to make the cutoff before feature freeze?