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pcplantdb - Re: [pcplantdb] Touch Graph Plant Family Tree

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  • From: Richard Morris <webmaster@pfaf.org>
  • To: pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] Touch Graph Plant Family Tree
  • Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 22:00:56 +0100

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
--
Plants for a Future: 7000 useful plants
Web: http://www.pfaf.org/ same as http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/
Post: 1 Lerryn View, Lerryn, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0QJ
Tel: 01208 872 963 / 0845 458 4719
Email: webmaster@pfaf.org
PFAF electronic mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pfaf






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