Hypergraph

Integration of Java hyperbolic tree geometry visualization developed at http://hypergraph.sourceforge.net/ in a Drupal module.

>> Download the Hypergraph Drupal module. <<

Don't get scared by the words and play with the demo below. (Hold the left mouse button to pan the graph!)

Hypergraph is not only beautiful, but also conceptually a very clever beast; enormously useful for site navigation.

This module aims to make full use the Hypergraph capabilities and provide visualization of menus, taxonomies, and content in general. In the current version, the Hypergraph module simply takes the menu tree of your choice and turns it into its visual equivalent.

Features:
• Configurable applet size.
• Configurable centre of display.
• Has both a default page ( /hypergraph ) and a block, for straightforward use, but any visualization can be entered into any page or custom block using a special tag.
• Depth-dependent label colouring.
• Possibility to choose from database (default) or file system caching (very fast!) (automatic removal of expired items implemented).

Planned features:
• Adding a hook to allow other modules use Hypergraph (e.g. to display network of users, transactions, logs, etc.)
• User friendlier configuration of the menu tree parent.
• Label, link, background colour/design configuration.
• Adding Freemind and other visualization metaphors into this module - 'hypergraph' will then basically mean any graphical representation of a complex information network.
• Other ideas? Submit a feature request.

Known bugs:
• N/A

Step-by-step installation:

  1. Download the latest version of the Hypergraph module from its Drupal home here.
  2. Enable the module in your Drupal ( /admin/build/modules ).
  3. Go to Input Formats in your Drupal ( /admin/settings/filters ) and via the "configure" link enable one of your input formats to recognize the Hypergraph Tag.
  4. Choose who can access to Hypergraph in ( /admin/user/access ).
  5. Change the default settings for Hypergraph in the admin section of your Drupal ( /admin/settings/hypergraph ).
    • Default width of the hyper graph.
    • Default height of the hyper graph

Use:

There are several ways in which you can display your visualization.

• Anywhere in a node, using a special tag in the format [hg|reserved|width|height|centernode]. The visualization on this page is generated using: [hg||600|400].

• You can add another visualization on the same page, if you wish (except that the rendering might rather slow your page loading, of course).

• As a default block (only settings set forth in /admin/settings/hypergraph apply).

• As a custom block. Just create a block with a Hypergraph Tag in it.

If you use this module, find it useful, post a link to a visualization of yours at http://www.vacilando.eu/ghg or send me a message via http://www.vacilando.eu/contact

The author can also be contacted for paid customizations of this and other modules.

All comments and patches providing or leading to improvements are most welcome here!

Development of this module is sponsored by Vacilando.org ( http://www.vacilando.org/ )

Installation and configuration instructions, demonstration and other information about this module are here.

  
Wednesday 19. September 2007, Brussel, België

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Hi Thomas, I want to

Submitted by mboudey on Thu, 2007-10-18 03:19.

Hi Thomas,

I want to congratulate you for that module.
It is sooooo important for people to start thinking/behaving/feeling with
a systemic view of life and content more than a linear static view of
things.
Your work is indeed a milestone in content navigation.
I have developed an education model that is based amongst other things on
systemic view of content and that will be VERY helpful when we build the
platform for it. I was stuck with table of contents and clouds of tags.
This goes beyond everything.

What I am REALLY interested in fact is the taxonomy multilevel and cross referenced map i.e. non-linear.
That would be probably visually more challenging and might require a more 3D-esque effect to be usable though.

Thanks again.

Michael Boudey

Thank you so much for this

Submitted by maui1 on Sat, 2007-12-01 03:58.

Thank you so much for this module. I have used hypergraph before and look forward to your work developing this for Drupal.

I have one question, on my installation user admin settings/hypergraph, there is no place to set the parent menu id. Does this need to be edited directly in the script somewhere?

Thanks for the

Submitted by Vacilando on Sun, 2007-12-09 18:48.

Thanks for the encouragement, maui1.

As for the parent settings -- that was an old piece of text, now removed. Definition of parents will be added in a later version of the module.

All suggestions about functionality are most welcome - either here or via http://drupal.org/project/issues/hypergraph