Relationship visualization (Page 1) - Tools - Rails Forum - Ruby on Rails Help and Discussion Forum

1 Topic by mersenne 2011-11-14 16:00:34

mersenne
Ticketholder
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Registered: 2011-11-14
Posts: 2

Topic: Relationship visualization

Hi guys
I'm new over here (to RoR as well ), so I hope, this post hits the right section.
I'm creating a RoR application, which consists of models Person and Relationship. Relationship is connection between 2 People. So to the matter.. I would like to make a interactive visualisation of all Relationships, so user could edit, add or delete. It should be in the form of a diagram. I would be so grateful for advices, what tools should I use, to achieve this goal. Adding some tutorials would be much appreciated.
Thanks!

2 Reply by BradHodges 2011-11-14 16:41:03

BradHodges
Engineer
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From: Los Angeles CA
Registered: 2008-03-17
Posts: 1,701

Re: Relationship visualization

First thing I'd look at is a plugin that adds parent/child/heriarchy relationships, like this one:

https://github.com/skyeagle/nested_set.git

next I'd get JQuery-UI, and learn their drag and drop stuff, i.e.

http://jqueryui.com/

That would allow you to drag and drop elements to move them around, (i.e. X is the son of Y, not son of Z)

Then I'd get RMagic

https://github.com/rmagick/rmagick

So you can do stuff like put graphics in the elements in the visualization, and make the chart elements fancier, draw lines between relationships, etc.

That's pretty much how I went when doing something similar, not people relationsips in my case, but relationships with heirarchy.

Joe got a job, on the day shift, at the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen, arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snout of a fully charged icing anointment utensil.