Tables using GSS, vs Fresnel

[Johan W. Klüwer-3]

Hello again,

Having started to look at IsaViz for RDF formatting, I find myself
somewhat confused with regard to the status of GSS, compared to
Fresnel, as the recommended tool for formatting graphs.

Is the intention that GSS will be retired, in favor of Fresnel (that
would be Fresnel + CSS?)? If so, I would rather spend time learning
Fresnel, but again, if GSS has more functionality, the choice isn't so
obvious. It would be very useful to hear some advice on this.

To mention a concrete example: On the IsaViz home page, there is a
screenshot showing how tables can be used very effectively to list
properties that belong together. This is just the kind of formatting I
am looking for. The example uses GSS.

Is it feasible to write Fresnel code to achieve (more or less) the
same results as with GSS -- in particular, to get tables in the graph?

I guess combining GSS and Fresnel is not intended -- or, would that be
a reasonable idea?


-Johan.

[Emmanuel Pietriga-2]

Hello,

On 6 août 07, at 13:59, Johan W. Kluwer wrote:

> Hello again,
>
> Having started to look at IsaViz for RDF formatting, I find myself
> somewhat confused with regard to the status of GSS, compared to
> Fresnel, as the recommended tool for formatting graphs.

Fresnel is no specifically designed for formatting graphs. Actually,  
most Fresnel implementations generate Web pages. But Fresnel Core is  
high-level enough that you can "interpret" it on a node-link diagram  
representation such as those generated by IsaViz.

> Is the intention that GSS will be retired, in favor of Fresnel (that
> would be Fresnel + CSS?)? If so, I would rather spend time learning
> Fresnel, but again, if GSS has more functionality, the choice isn't so
> obvious. It would be very useful to hear some advice on this.

No, GSS and Fresnel have different goals, even if there is some  
overlap. They can co-exist. If you look closely at how IsaViz  
interprets Fresnel, you'll see that it does not change the static  
representation of the graph, but dynamically changes the layout  
depending on the selected lens and RDF resource.


> To mention a concrete example: On the IsaViz home page, there is a
> screenshot showing how tables can be used very effectively to list
> properties that belong together. This is just the kind of formatting I
> am looking for. The example uses GSS.
>
> Is it feasible to write Fresnel code to achieve (more or less) the
> same results as with GSS -- in particular, to get tables in the graph?

No, not at the moment. That would belong to a Fresnel extension  
vocabulary anyway (Fresnel core does not say anything about tables).


> I guess combining GSS and Fresnel is not intended -- or, would that be
> a reasonable idea?

Actually, it is. You could have a graph styled with GSS, and then  
consider dynamically applying Fresnel lenses to resources of that graph.

Emmanuel

--
Emmanuel Pietriga
INRIA Futurs - Projet In Situ    tel : [phone]
Bat 490, Université Paris-Sud    fax : [phone]
91405 ORSAY Cedex FRANCE     http://www.lri.fr/~pietriga

[Johan W. Klüwer-3]

    EP> [...] GSS and Fresnel have different goals, even if there is
    EP> some overlap.

Many thanks! This really clears up my confusion.

I suppose I will attempt to do just the graph-specific formatting in
GSS. If selection and other operations that can be done with Fresnel
are, then the Fresnel code should be reusable in other browsers.

Thanks again,

Johan.