Setup interactive charts for data representation

At the end of this blog, you would be able to setup interactive charts using HighCharts and D3.js. As the charts/data-visualisation models will form the backbone of the upcoming SUSI.AI Analytics dashboard, as well as the data representational model for various useful data. For the purpose of integration with the SUSI Skills CMS project, we will be using the react-highcharts and react-tagcloud library.

There are various kinds of charts and plots that HighCharts offers. They are –

  • Line charts
  • Area charts
  • Column and Bar Charts
  • Pie Charts
  • Scatter and Bubble Charts
  • Combinations
  • Dynamic Charts
  • Gauges
  • Heat and Tree maps
  • 3D charts

Check out this link for the full list.

We would be aiming to build up the above charts for analysis of Term Frequency Trends and Trending Clouds.

For the Term Frequency Trends, we will need to setup a Basic Line Graph and for the later,  we need a World Cloud.

Setting up a Basic Line Graph

The aim is to setup a basic line graph and to accomplish that we use a react library called react-highcharts, which makes our work very easier.

Firstly, we create an object config that contains the labels and the required data, with the key values as mentioned in the API reference. The object looks like this –

const config = {
  xAxis: {
    categories: ['01/13', '01/14', '01/15', '01/16', '01/17', '01/18', '01/19', '01/20']
  },
  series: [{
    data: [750, 745, 756, 740, 760, 752, 765]
  }]
};

Secondly, we create a React Component and pass the config object as a property to the ReactHighcharts component.

Finally, we render the component in a div of the index.html file, and the following output is achieved.

The code for the component that renders the Chart is as follows:

import React from 'react';
import ReactHighcharts from 'react-highcharts';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';

const config = {
  xAxis: {
    categories: ['01/13', '01/14', '01/15', '01/16', '01/17', '01/18', '01/19', '01/20']
  },
  series: [{
    data: [750, 745, 756, 740, 760, 752, 765]
  }]
};

ReactDOM.render(<ReactHighcharts  config={config} />, document.getElementById('app'));

Setting up a WordCloud

Here, we wish to setup a WordCloud that would show the different words that got searched or the top trending words. We would be using the react-tagcloud library for this.

Firstly, we create an object data that contains the text along with the count/frequency of search. The object looks like this –

const data = [
  { value: "JavaScript", count: 38 },
  { value: "React", count: 30 },
  { value: "Nodejs", count: 28 },
  { value: "Express.js", count: 25 },
  { value: "HTML5", count: 33 },
  { value: "MongoDB", count: 18 },
  { value: "CSS3", count: 20 }
];

Secondly, we create a React Component and pass the data object as a property to the TagCloud component.

Finally, we render the component in a div of the index.html file, and the following output is achieved.

The code for the component that renders the Chart is as follows:

import React from 'react';
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { TagCloud } from "react-tagcloud";
 
const data = [
  { value: "JavaScript", count: 38 },
  { value: "React", count: 30 },
  { value: "Nodejs", count: 28 },
  { value: "Express.js", count: 25 },
  { value: "HTML5", count: 33 },
  { value: "MongoDB", count: 18 },
  { value: "CSS3", count: 20 }
];
 
const SimpleCloud = () => (
  <TagCloud 
       minSize={12}
       maxSize={35}
       tags={data}
       onClick={tag => alert(`'${tag.value}' was selected!`)} />
);

ReactDOM.render(<SimpleCloud />, document.getElementById('app'));

 

These were some examples of setting up some of the data-visualization models, that would form the basic building block of the SUSI Analytics project. I hope this blogs would be a good starting point for those wanting to start with setting up charts, graphs, etc.

Resources

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Twitter Followers Insight App for loklak Apps Site

Twitter Followers Insight, is an app for checking the followers and following lists of an account and as we click on a name, the chain continues. The app also helps to visualize the data, which is returned from the loklak user information API, where it shows the distribution of followers and following across the world in the form of pie chart.

Related issue: https://github.com/fossasia/apps.loklak.org/pull/291

Developing the App

In the initial stage of the app, the main challenge faced was to implement the clickable feature i.e., make the name of the users in the list which gets displayed should be clickable which navigates to the next list to display as the query changes. Well this was tricky but easy to solve as I had to take the Angular JS with input parameter.

Script for storing and displaying the data:

The script below shows how to details are being fetched from the JSON object which is returned by the loklak Userdata API. The data or details is then being stored into an list/array which is a scope variable. The array is then iterated in a particular fashion how I want to get it displayed.

Storing the data:

for (var i = 0; i < followers.length; i++) {
    user = followers[i].screen_name;
    name = followers[i].name;
    followers_count = followers[i].followers_count;
    pic = followers[i].profile_image_url;
    followers_loc.push(followers[i].location_country);
    followerslist.push([user, pic, name, followers_count]);
}

 

The below script shows how the array i.e., showed in the above code, being used and iterated over. Here in this script I used a “ng-repeat” angular function where the list/array is iterated till the limit. The script also display in which order the data is getting displayed on the screen. The clickable feature is set in the “ng-click” angular function, where we are calling the Search function with query as the input parameter.

Displaying the data with clickable feature:

<ul class="gallery-container" >
    <li class="gallery-item" style="list-style-type: none;" ng-repeat="value in followersStatus | limitTo: limitFollowers">
        <a href ng-click="Search(value[0])">
            
class="item-image"> src="{{ value[1] }}" style="height: 94px;width: 94px" />
class="item-desc">
class="item-name"> {{ value[2] }}
class="item-handle"> @{{ value[0] }}
class="item-followers"> class="item-label">Followers: class="item-content">{{ value[3] }}
</div> </a> </li> </ul>

 

Visualizing Followers and Following data using Pie Chart

In this app, the data of user’s followers and following is visualized on the basis of the location they live in. This data is visualized in the form of pie chart using Highcharts.

Script for displaying pie chart:

             $('.pie-chart').highcharts({
                chart: {
                    plotBackgroundColor: null,
                    plotBorderWidth: null,
                    plotShadow: false,
                    type: 'pie'
                },
                title: {
                    text: "Followers"
                },
                tooltip: {
                    pointFormat: '{series.name}: <b>{point.percentage:.1f}%</b>'
                },
                plotOptions: {
                    pie: {
                        allowPointSelect: true,
                        cursor: 'pointer',
                        dataLabels: {
                            enabled: true,
                            format : '',
                            style: {
                                color: (Highcharts.theme && Highcharts.theme.contrastTextColor) || 'black'
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                series: [{
                    name: "Followers",
                    colorByPoint: true,
                    data: $scope.locations
                }]
            });

 

Resources

  • Learn more about AngularJS here.
  • Learn more about Highcharts here.
  • Learn more about Loklak API here.
Continue ReadingTwitter Followers Insight App for loklak Apps Site