Creating a Neo4j Example Graph With the Arrows Tool
Creating a Neo4j Example Graph With the Arrows Tool
Arrows is a JavaScript-based tool to render example graphs. Handy for presentations, Arrows meshes a minimal interface with support for features like the Cypher language.
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Some years ago my colleague Alistair Jones created a neat little tool in JavaScript to edit and render example graphs in a consistent way.
It is aptly named Arrows and you can find it here: http://www.apcjones.com/arrows
We mostly use it for presentations, but also to show data models for Neo4j GraphGists and Neo4j Browser Guides. Because it also stores the positions of nodes, it’s always true to the same layout and doesn’t wiggle around.
The user interface is minimal:
- Create new nodes with (+ Node)
- Drag relationships out of the halo of a node
- Either to an empty space for a new node or centered over an existing one to connect them
- Double click nodes and relationships to edit them, set names and properties (in a `key: “value” syntax)
- There are two styles: the chunky largish one and a more polished Bootstrap style
- You can show the Markdown and also replace it with a previously saved
- You can export to SVG or take a screenshot
- You can also export to Cypher and open the graph in a Neo4j Console (console.neo4j.org)
Arrows has its internal graph model and API that you can also control programmatically.
The tool is open source and you find the renderer and editor and a self-hosted variant in this GitHub project.
It uses HTML-Markdown with a bunch of attributes as data storage for your graph data.
<ul class="graph-diagram-markup" data-internal-scale="1.01" data-external-scale="1">
<li class="node" data-node-id="0" data-x="-37" data-y="-18">
<span class="caption">User</span><dl class="properties"><dt>name</dt><dd>"Mark"</dd></dl></li>
<li class="node" data-node-id="1" data-x="67.58551025390625" data-y="-129.11111450195312">
<span class="caption">Tweet</span><dl class="properties"><dt>id</dt><dd>42342</dd><dt>text</dt><dd>"Hello World"</dd></dl></li>
<li class="node" data-node-id="2" data-x="96.57560926380722" data-y="75.154541015625">
<span class="caption">User</span><dl class="properties"><dt>name</dt><dd>"Andreas"</dd></dl></li>
<li class="node" data-node-id="3" data-x="189.08416748046875" data-y="-39">
<span class="caption">Tweet</span><dl class="properties"><dt>id</dt><dd>2342</dd><dt>text</dt><dd>"Welcome"</dd></dl></li>
<li class="node" data-node-id="4" data-x="264.2060852050781" data-y="75.154541015625">
<span class="caption">Tag</span><dl class="properties"><dt>name</dt><dd>"fun"</dd></dl></li>
<li class="relationship" data-from="0" data-to="1">
<span class="type">POSTED</span>
</li>
<li class="relationship" data-from="0" data-to="2">
<span class="type">FOLLOWED</span>
</li>
<li class="relationship" data-from="2" data-to="3">
<span class="type">POSTED</span>
</li>
<li class="relationship" data-from="3" data-to="1">
<span class="type">REPLIED</span>
</li>
<li class="relationship" data-from="3" data-to="4"></li>
</ul>I recorded a quick video of Arrows in action. Enjoy!
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