pcplantdb

[Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>]

John Howe wrote:
> > Folks,
> > I've had a play about with TouchGraph to see what we could do with it.
>
> Have a
>
> > look at
>
> http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/pcplantdb/PlantFamilyTree/PlantFamilies.html
>
> > in which I've put the family tree from Kingdom down to Species as a
>
> TouchGraph.
>
> > (Note for size reasons there are separate graphs for each family).
>
>
> Hey Rich, All,
>
> I have been lurking here for a while now and have been playing around with
> the pfaf mysql db on Linux. I am curious what platform you tested this
> TouchGraph on.

Mozilla 1.4, with a Java 1.4.1 Plug-in running under Win98.
Basically what I had running on my PC at home.

Yes I know its pretty bug ridden, I'm note sure where the
bug lies, its either in the TouchGraph stuff (which is potentially
fixable) or its in Swing (the new fangled Java GUI, which only SUN
can fix). I'm not the greatest fan of Swing which is too
clever for its own good and there is a chance that the Applet
is pushing Swing to its limits. I've had a number of similar
problems myself.

If you want to play with it
        http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/pcplantdb/PlantFamilyTree.tar.gz
is a tar ball of the code and data. You may have better luck
running it as a java application at home, i.e. using java
rather than a browser.
> I tried accessing this TouchGraph app on a couple of systems, and here are
> my results:
>
> MacOS X 10.2.8
> ~ Mozilla 1.4 ( applet downloaded, then empty node browser window )
> ~ Firebird 0.6 ( applet downloaded, then empty node browser window )
> ~ Safari 1.0 ( applet downloaded, then empty node browser window )
> ~ MS IE 5.2 ( applet download, 37 seconds to load on 640K DSL line, once
> parent
> node is clicked, the application is basically unusable, as nodes spawn out
> too fast and the app stops responding. Can't seem to compress the nodes
> either. Information windows can not be rescaled to display info )
>
> Linux Debian "Sid"
> ~ Mozilla 1.4 ( no java support )
> ~ Firebird 0.7 ("")
>
> Windows 2000
> ~ Not tested

Have you had similar results using the demos on the TouchGraph site?
It might help to findout if the problem is our app or TouchGraph.

> There seem to be a couple alternates to TouchGraph that may be kinder to
> the web client ( with limited bandwidth, was that jar file 2.6M?  ) and
> make caching of information easier to proxies/upstream mirrors. It may be
> programatically more complex however to implement.

The size problems is actually due to the data. Approx 7000 entries
at 5 lines of XML each. The applet itself is quite small.

> Specifically:
>
> 1. http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/graphviz/
>
> AT&T's graphviz, accessable via PHP Pear libraries ( PHP
> Pear::Image_GraphViz ), requires netpbm as well.
>
> 2. http://webesquema.tucajon.com/
>
> Sort of a tree/class browser ( habla espanol? )
>
> Some example php/js/graphviz projects as reference:
>
> http://pathalizer.bzzt.net/
> http://erw.dsi.unimi.it/
> http://urlgreyhot.com/graphviz/
>
> An alternate delivery mechanism could be using GraphViz and dhtml
> mouse-over boxes to image maps ( example @
> http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/, mouse over items in "Download
> von" list ) to the java app in terms of bandwidth/cross-platform broswer
> portability.

Excelent. I'll check them out.

        Nice one for the feedback.

                Rich
--
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