Hi Neil,
It depends on what you mean by *supporting* hierarchical data. The
database in Exhibit can store not just trees, but also graphs. So in
that sense, yes, Exhibit does support hierarchical data. However, the UI
currently does not make so much use of that. For example, we don't have
a tree widget to show hierarchical data, or a graph widget to show graphs.
There is certainly a desire to support hierarchical data, and graph
data, at the UI level. There is no fixed schedule for that. It is not
high on our priority list right now because Exhibit data sets are
usually small and don't exhibit hierarchies very often. However, as we
move toward supporting larger data sets, that desire will get stronger
quickly.
If you are really dying for this feature, I can answer more specific
questions and give you pointers off this mailing list.
Cheers,
David
Neil Ireson wrote:
> Firstly I'd just like to add to the general "well-done" for releasing such a
> cracking bit of software...
>
> I was wondering what's the likelihood of Exhibit being able to support
> hierarchical data?
>
> Or I guess the question could be put as:
> a) is there any(strong) desire for such functionality, or is it only me.
> b) does anyone have any pointers to how such functionality might be (easily)
> implemented.
>
> As an example the Dojo jsonitemstore can handle the following hierarchical
> data format:
>
> { identifier:'label',
> items:[
> { label:'Africa', type:'continent', countries:[
> { label:'Egypt', type:'country', capital:'Cairo' },
> { label:'Kenya', type:'country', capital:'Nairobi' },
> { label:'Sudan', type:'country', capital:'Khartoum' }]},
> { label:'North America', type:'continent', countries:[
> { label:'Canada', type:'country', population:'33 million', cities:[
> { label:'Toronto', type:'city', population:'2.5 million' }]}]}
> ]};
>
> actually it's possible to have a 'cleaner' representation using the
> 'reference' keyword, e.g.
>
> { identifier: 'name',
> items: [
> { name:'Africa', type:'continent',
> children:[{reference:'Egypt'}, {reference:'Kenya'},
> {reference:'Sudan'}] },
> { name:'Egypt', type:'country' },
> { name:'Kenya', type:'country',
> children:[{reference:'Nairobi'}, {reference:'Mombasa'}] },
> { name:'Nairobi', type:'city' },
> { name:'Mombasa', type:'city' },
> { name:'Sudan', type:'country',
> children:{reference:'Khartoum'} },
> { name:'Khartoum', type:'city' },
>
>
> In Exhibit, handling such data would obviously involve some form of tree
> based representation in the table columns, tiles and facets, but would allow
> some nice hierarchical faceted browsing as is shown on the VRA Core browsing
> possible in the demo at http://simile.mit.edu/rvc/.
>
> Currently I'm displaying the data by flattening the tree; having a column for
> each level of the tree. However this looses the semantic structure of the
> tree to guide the user and is confusing if the node labels in the tree are
> not unique.
>
> Neil
>
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