Editing Simple XML

You can use interactive editors to create and edit dashboards without having to edit Simple XML source code. However, some advanced dashboard features are not available from interactive editors. You can access these features by editing the underlying simple XML code.

Edit dashboard source code

Edit dashboard Simple XML source code to customize settings that are not accessible from the user interface. The dashboard source code editor provides interactive validation as you make updates.

Prerequisites
If you are unfamiliar with Simple XML, review the following information before you edit source code.

• Dashboard and form structure and elements in Dashboards and forms
• Available options and elements in the Simple XML Reference

Steps

1. From the Dashboards listing page, open the dashboard that you want to edit.
2. Select Edit to open the dashboard editor.
3. Click Source to open the source code editor.
4. Edit the source code.
   The editor provides automatic tag closing and validation. It also displays warnings or error messages as needed. Hover over a warning or error icon next to a line of source code to view details.
5. If the Save button is disabled, correct any code with validation warnings or errors. Otherwise, click Save to save your edits.

Special characters in XML files

Some characters have special meaning in Simple XML files. To prevent the source code parser from treating them as special characters, wrap them in <![CDATA[]]> tags.

<![CDATA[
<content_with_special_characters>
]]>

You can also escape these characters using HTML entities.

Character	Description	HTML Entity
'	apostrophe	'
?	question mark	?
'	plus sign	+
"	quote	"
<	left angle bracket	&lt;
>	right angle bracket	&gt;
&	ampersand	&amp;

Read-only access to dashboard Simple XML code

Access a read-only version of dashboard source code by appending the showsource query parameter to the dashboard URL. See the following example.

https://host:port/en-US/app/my_app/my_dashboard?showsource

Note: Read-only source code access is available only for Simple XML dashboards. Read-only HTML or Advanced XML source code is not accessible using the URL.

Additional information

Before you edit Simple XML, review the following resources.

• Simple XML dashboard and form structure in Anatomy of dashboards and forms.

• The Simple XML Reference and the Chart Configuration Reference provide details on Simple XML elements and options.

Splunk Enterprise users can edit Simple XML using a third-party editor. This option is not available in Splunk Cloud Platform. See Using a third party XML editor.