On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 6:34 AM, Björn Grüning <bjoern.gruening@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Carl,

Am 03.03.2014 21:13, schrieb Carl Eberhard:

Hey, Bjoern

Not sure whether a pull request or a toolshed repo would be best, but: if
you decide on a toolshed repo, graphview as it is should be able to use
your datatypes if they include a 'node-edge' dataprovider.

How can that work? If we migrate all graph-datatypes to the toolshed, graphview needs to depend on it, or?

I hadn't considered moving the existing graph datatypes to the toolshed as part of the plan, but if we do graphview doesn't necessarily need to be moved as well (although that would make things more consistent).

The registry and graphview's configuration file just check whether a dataset has a dataprovider named 'node-edge'. There's no code shared between them so it's not dependent on the datatype or dataprovider code.

At the very least, moving graphview a seperate decision. Also, it's worth noting that there currently is no distribution of visualizations from the tool shed.
 

Maybe you can comment on my rough plan for that project:

- Graph converter, Tool (every format into every other including json)
- individual converter to 'auto-convert' every datatype implicitly by Galaxy
 - both are networkx based, so not sure that can be included in Galaxy Main, we need at least a new egg
- write a dataprovider that provides json for every format to graphview (omitting the reconstruction of a graph, again in JS)

I'd think if you can parse it with networkx, you can pipe that through a dataprovider to provide the d3 formatted JSON (which is what the 'node-edge' does).
 
- enhance the graphview interface a little bit, some control elements, ideally an export function to SVG, PNG
- add filtering to the graphview

I must admit, that I haven’t looked much into the details of the JS code of graphview but as far as I see its d3.js based and I hope the last two points are more or less easy with d3.js


The last should be fairly easy. The second-to-last is more difficult (though on my list for the registry as a whole). 

Unfortunately, d3 doesn't handle either right now well (mainly due to browser technology).

The best soln's for SVG seem to involve either a round trip to the server or asking the user to right-click a link a choose 'Save as'. In either case, including a proper stylesheet for the SVG (or, in the future, a scoped stylesheet) becomes an issue - especially if it will be imported into a PDF, printed, or copied into Word, etc. 

PNG's will involve a round trip to the server and some library on that side that can reliably and accurately render the SVG onto a bitmap (inkscape or imageMagick(?)). There's also a small chance that a canvas library could be used to render the SVG and serve it as a data URI without the round trip.

 
Do you have any ToDo items on your list regarding graphview? Should I create a Trello Card for it?

Not at the moment. Please, feel free and thanks for doing it.

Carl