[[console-kibana]]
== Console

The Console plugin provides a UI to interact with the REST API of Elasticsearch. Console has two main areas: the *editor*,
where you compose requests to Elasticsearch, and the *response* pane, which displays the responses to the request.

.The Console UI
image::images/introduction_screen.png[Screenshot]

Console understands commands in a cURL-like syntax. For example the following Console command

[source,js]
----------------------------------
GET /_search
{
  "query": {
    "match_all": {}
  }
}
----------------------------------

is a simple `GET` request to Elasticsearch's `_search API`. Here is the equivalent command in cURL.

[source,bash]
----------------------------------
curl -XGET "http://localhost:9200/_search" -d'
{
  "query": {
    "match_all": {}
  }
}'
----------------------------------

In fact, you can paste the above command into Console and it will automatically be converted into the Console syntax.

When typing a command, Console will make context sensitive <<suggestions,suggestions>>. These suggestions can help
you explore parameters for each API, or to just speed up typing. Console will suggest APIs, indexes and field
names.

[[suggestions]]
.API suggestions
image::images/introduction_suggestion.png["Suggestions",width=400,align="center"]

Once you have typed a command in to the left pane, you can submit it to Elasticsearch by clicking the little green
triangle that appears next to the URL line of the request. Notice that as you move the cursor around, the little
 triangle and wrench icons follow you around. We call this the <<action_menu,Action Menu>>. You can also select
 multiple requests and submit them all at once.

[[action_menu]]
.The Action Menu
image::images/introduction_action_menu.png["The Action Menu",width=400,align="center"]

When the response come back, you should see it in the left hand panel:

.The Output Pane
image::images/introduction_output.png[Screenshot]

[float]
[[console-ui]]
=== The Console UI

In this section you will find a more detailed description of UI of Console. The basic aspects of the UI are explained
in the <<console-kibana>> section.


include::console/multi-requests.asciidoc[]

include::console/auto-formatting.asciidoc[]

include::console/keyboard-shortcuts.asciidoc[]

include::console/history.asciidoc[]

include::console/settings.asciidoc[]

include::console/configuring-console.asciidoc[]