Re: [Tm4j-developers] Graph presentation

[Jack P. <jac...@th...>]

I've begun to make comments along this line at http://graphs.memes.net
Do you folks think that's an appropriate place to evolve a discussion on 
using, say, GXL as a base API on which database servers can plug into the 
backside and various wrappers can plug into the front side?

Cheers
Jack

At 05:33 PM 2/28/2002 +0000, Murray Altheim wrote:
>Kal Ahmed wrote:
>[...]
>>>I have a preliminary XTM-to-TouchGraph converter working, though it is
>>>missing a good deal of the topic map (such as occurrences and any sort
>>>of interactive features). As a display tool for topics, associations,
>>>and *some* of the scopes it works passably. But for now I won't be
>>>spending so much time on it as my Ph.D duties are calling louder. But
>>>perhaps working together on a Java API for XTM-in-TG I'd be happy to
>>>lend a hand
>>That sounds cool. I think that there are two independent things which we 
>>could collaborate on here - one is a common visualisation for XTM in TG 
>>(e.g. what should be displayed as TG nodes and what should be TG arcs, 
>>conventions on the use of colour, shapes and labels) such that two 
>>different apps displaying XTM in TG could do so in a consistent manner. 
>>The second would be a generic topic map viewer using TG (possibly built 
>>on top of TMAPI). The third thing might be if I can just pick your brains 
>>if I get stuck on the TG coding... ;-)
>
>Gad, I hope you don't have to pick my brains. I was thinking it'd be
>the other way around. Sometime this spring I hope to be able to release
>my Ceryle application, which should provide a framework upon which some
>of this can be built. It has a working implementation of Xindice plus
>XNode (the API I wrote for putting metadata-laden XML into Xindice that
>will hopefully make it into the Apache submission), plus a working
>of TG that will (hopefully) have some sort of import and export to and
>from GXL and XTM, though currently I'm not at all happy with it.
>
>[...]
>>>I instead decided to look at how GXL could be used for this purpose,
>>>and that's when the light bulb went off -- it was an obvious choice for
>>>a common syntax. I've also written a TG-to-GXL converter in the process,
>>>then realized I wanted a more generalized approach.
>>
>>An XML graph vocabulary is the obvious lowest-common-denominator 
>>representation for TMs, CGs, RDF et al. I haven't (yet) looked deeply 
>>into GXL - I have skimmed over some of the pages from Jacks's reference. 
>>My feeling is that GXL as a vocabulary is interesting though as you point 
>>out somewhat limiting for use by humans because of its verbosity. In 
>>using it as a lingua-franca for different represntational forms, you will 
>>undoubtedly run into semantic problems. However, having said all that, 
>>the nice simple graph model that GXL encodes would be an interesting 
>>basis for a "node engine" that handles multiple higher-level 
>>representations of which TM4J could be one.
>
>I don't think GXL will be any more limiting than RDF, in fact I like it
>a lot better than RDF as a syntax because it doesn't mix the lexical
>with the grammar, no XML namespaces, etc. I think Jack, you and I are
>thinking pretty alike on this. I'm just watching as the GXL researchers
>develop a suitable schema language -- there's been a post recently in
>this regard on their mailing list, but I've not had time to investigate
>further.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Murray
>
>