GraphLayoutPlugin Discussions

Related topics as described in RelatedTopicsPluginDev can be represented in a graphical manner. One example is Codev.WebDOTPlugin. Another example is this Java applet I found in a long forgotten book sitting in my book shelfs: Hooked on Java, Creating Hot Web Sites with Java Applets, Arthur van Hoff, ISBN:020148837X. It lists a very cool Graph Layout applet which could be extended to show related topics:

(you need a Java enabled browser to see this)

Above graph data is just a mockup but you get the idea.

Now, the applet could be extended to have links, two for each node: A link pointing to the topic and a link to re-center the graph around the selected topic. Example:

The underlined text is the usual hypertext link; the target is the link to re-center the graph; the blue title bar can be used to move the node around the screen.

Anyone interested to take the challenge to implement this?

Implementation hints:

• Get the topic relation from the RelatedTopicsPluginDev.
• Use an oops template to hold the applet like in the TWikiDrawPlugin
• The oops template has some plugin specific variables that get expanded to topic relation of the active topic.
• A new applet parameter needs to be provided for the topic links.
• The re-center link points simply to the oops template of the selected topic.
• For the background of the nodes use the web color as a reference.

-- PeterThoeny - 05 Aug 2002

PeterKlausner created something related, a TouchGraphAddOn.

-- PeterThoeny - 10 Oct 2002