README
Trrack Library
A library to create and track provenance in web based apps. Trrack allows you to create and maintain a non linear provenance graph representing the history of the state of your visualization. Through this graph, you can easily implement complete action recovery, as well as store custom metadata and annotations.
Trrack also allows for easy sharing of a visualization's current state through URL sharing. To share entire session history, Trrack allows for the import and exporting of provenance graphs, as well as has built in integration with firebase to store the graphs.
For full documentation, see http://vdl.sci.utah.edu/trrack-examples/api/trrack
Features
- Power you application to track user interactions or changes
- Enable undo/redo functionality
- Track changes in non-linear manner with branches
- Add custom metadata and annotations to each node in the graph
- Built in Firebase support for storing large graphs
- Simple API
- Full Typescript support
Installation
- NPM
npm install --save-dev @visdesignlab/trrack
- Yarn
yarn add @visdesignlab/trrack
Usage
import { initProvenance, Provenance, ProvenanceGraph } from '@visdesignlab/trrack';
// ************************************************
// Setup all the interfaces and types
enum SortByOptions {
PETAL_LENGTH = 'PETAL_LENGTH',
PETAL_WIDTH = 'PETAL_WIDTH',
SEPAL_LENGTH = 'SEPAL_LENGTH',
SEPAL_WIDTH = 'SEPAL_WIDTH'
}
enum SortDirection {
ASCENDING = 'ASCENDING',
DESCENDING = 'DESCENDING'
}
// This is the interface which defines the state of your application. Instance of this interface will be tracked
interface ApplicationState {
irisDatasetPath: string;
sortConfig: {
sortBy: SortByOptions;
sortDirection: SortDirection;
};
}
// The instance of the ApplicationState which will be tracked. This is also the root state in Provenance Graph
const initialState = {
irisDatasetPath: '/path/to/dataset/iris.csv',
sortConfig: {
sortBy: SortByOptions.PETAL_LENGTH,
sortDirection: SortDirection.ASCENDING
}
};
// Initialize provenance tracking by passing root state.
const provenance = initProvenance(initialState);
// Add observers to do something on state change.
provenance.addObserver(['irisDatasetPath'], () => {
// Dataset changed, do something
});
provenance.addObserver(['sortConfig', 'sortDirection'], (state?: ApplicationState) => {
// Sort direction changed, do something
});
provenance.addObserver(['sortConfig', 'sortBy'], (state?: ApplicationState) => {
// Sort by attribute changed, do something
});
// Call this when all the observers are defined.
// This is optional and only used when you want to enable sharing and loading states from URL.
// Refere documentation for advanced usage scenario.
provenance.done();
// Define actions to change various states. This can be as granular or coarse as you wish.
// The state here will be the current state which provenance passes in.
const changeSortDirection: ActionFunction<ApplicationState> = (
state: ApplicationState,
sortDirection: SortDirection
) => {
state.sortConfig.sortDirection = sortDirection;
return state;
};
const changeSortByAttribute: ActionFunction<ApplicationState> = (
state: ApplicationState,
sortBy: SortByOptions
) => {
state.sortConfig.sortBy = sortBy;
return state;
};
const changeDataset: ActionFunction<ApplicationState> = (
state: ApplicationState,
newFilePath: string
) => {
state.irisDatasetPath = newFilePath;
return state;
};
// Then apply the above actions as needed using applyAction method.
// It takes in multiple arguments. The first two are required.
// First is the label describing the event, second is the function. This can be anonymous function.
// Third is optional parameters which will be passed to the function passed as second arguments.
let action = provenance.addAction('Changing dataset', changeDataset);
action
.addArgs('/path/to/new/dataset')
.applyAction();
Development
Clone the repository
git clone git@github.com:visdesignlab/trrack.git
Use npm commands
npm t
: Run test suitenpm start
: Runnpm run build
in watch modenpm run test:watch
: Run test suite in interactive watch modenpm run test:prod
: Run linting and generate coveragenpm run build
: Generate bundles and typings, create docsnpm run lint
: Lints codenpm run commit
: Commit using conventional commit style (husky will tell you to use it if you haven't :wink:)
Resources
Project created using Typescript library starter by alexjoverm
Other provenance related projects
Example application using provenance. Also demonstrates how to import and export the current state of an application.
More Examples using provenance with typescript and d3.
trrack-vis is a library for visualizing the provenance graph created from this library.
Intent System is a tool for predicting user intent patterns when brushing in scatterplots. The intent system utilizes the provenance library to control all interaction, as well as the ProvVis library to visualize the resulting provenance graph.