Graph Gear XML Files Vague Specification.

Every graph is defined with a little xml file. Here we'll walk you through what can be in the file. Most of the values are optional. The only required values are: the graph title, the graph bgcolor, the node id, the node text, the edge to and from nodes, and the edge label. See the example "The Smallest Interesting Graph" for the bare minimum.

We start out with the general <graph> tag. They usually look something like this:

<graph title="Some Collaboratives" bgcolor="ffffff" linecolor="cccccc" viewmode="explore" width="600" height="300">

The next interesting part of the file are the individuals nodes that actually make up your graph. A typical one probably looks something like this:

<node id="n1" text="The Collaborative" image="somecollabs/co.png" link="http://www.creativesynthesis.net" scale="200" color="ff0000" textcolor="ffffff"/>

The last important item of a graph file is the actual description of the connections between nodes. Free floating nodes don't tend to do so well. It's also worth noting that the graphs currently don't have any concept of direction (at least in rendering). So at this point it is good enough to specify only one direction (for example, that node1 connects to node2, without defining that node2 connects to node1). These look something like this:

<edge sourceNode="n1" targetNode="n2" label="A label!" textcolor="555555"/> That's it for now.