Live data from Hacker News

RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

rawgraphs.io

11–20 of 35 posts

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#12
This tool uses the "drag and drop columns into the graph editor" pattern, which I've seen in a few other places too - Kibana Lens most recently: https://www.elastic.co/kibana/kibana-lens

I have to admit this interface doesn't really fit the way I think about charts. I'm interested in alternative UI designs for this kind of charting tool that don't use drag-and-drop - anyone seen any good ones?

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#13
post #12

This tool uses the "drag and drop columns into the graph editor" pattern, which I've seen in a few other places too - Kibana Lens most recently: https://www.elastic.co/kibana/kibana-lens I have to admit this interface doesn't really fit the way I think about charts. I'm interested in alternative UI designs for this kind of charting tool that don't use drag-and-drop - anyone seen any good ones?

Long time lurker here, just created an account since my friend had the same issue as you, so I started working on https://github.com/wodend/pysimpleplotter. It is still in development, but please give it a try and let me know if it better suits your use-case, keep in mind this was specifically designed to work with CSV/TSV output from scientific instruments. We plan on supporting exporting charts with styles for specific journals, and I will add better error handling when I get time.

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#14
post #12

This tool uses the "drag and drop columns into the graph editor" pattern, which I've seen in a few other places too - Kibana Lens most recently: https://www.elastic.co/kibana/kibana-lens I have to admit this interface doesn't really fit the way I think about charts. I'm interested in alternative UI designs for this kind of charting tool that don't use drag-and-drop - anyone seen any good ones?

Tableau follows this drag-and-drop pattern, but in a much more explicit way than Kibana, with the ability to drop columns onto slots with (more-or-less) predictable effects. It's immensely polished - and priced accordingly.

https://help.tableau.com/current/guides/get-started-tutorial...

I'm actually not sure there's a better UI pattern for the nontechnical user. If you want to visualize both the slots and the options at once to give people a sense of what they can do with their current schema... you don't just want a dropdown for each slot that's going to forget your state, move all over the place, etc.

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#15
I really wanted to like this, I've tried it several times but always end up with either having to pre-process my data to fit whatever vis I'm trying to create or just simply not being able to do it.

I recommend https://observablehq.com, once you get a hang of it and have a couple of templates setup for your workflows it's similar effort of this and you have a lot more flexibility.

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#16
post #14
post #12

This tool uses the "drag and drop columns into the graph editor" pattern, which I've seen in a few other places too - Kibana Lens most recently: https://www.elastic.co/kibana/kibana-lens I have to admit this interface doesn't really fit the way I think about charts. I'm interested in alternative UI designs for this kind of charting tool that don't use drag-and-drop - anyone seen any good ones?

Tableau follows this drag-and-drop pattern, but in a much more explicit way than Kibana, with the ability to drop columns onto slots with (more-or-less) predictable effects. It's immensely polished - and priced accordingly. https://help.tableau.com/current/guides/get-started-tutorial... I'm actually not sure there's a better UI pattern for the nontechnical user. If you want to visualize both the slots and the options…

Maybe that's my problem: I'm a very technical user, and I find the drag thing baffling. Perhaps if I had less depth of knowledge I'd find it more intuitive?

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#17
post #13
post #12

This tool uses the "drag and drop columns into the graph editor" pattern, which I've seen in a few other places too - Kibana Lens most recently: https://www.elastic.co/kibana/kibana-lens I have to admit this interface doesn't really fit the way I think about charts. I'm interested in alternative UI designs for this kind of charting tool that don't use drag-and-drop - anyone seen any good ones?

Long time lurker here, just created an account since my friend had the same issue as you, so I started working on https://github.com/wodend/pysimpleplotter . It is still in development, but please give it a try and let me know if it better suits your use-case, keep in mind this was specifically designed to work with CSV/TSV output from scientific instruments. We plan on supporting exporting charts with styles for spe…

I’ve seen pyDatView: https://github.com/ebranlard/pyDatView which I use for time-series csv files generally. Might be some good inspiration for you too!

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#18
post #12

This tool uses the "drag and drop columns into the graph editor" pattern, which I've seen in a few other places too - Kibana Lens most recently: https://www.elastic.co/kibana/kibana-lens I have to admit this interface doesn't really fit the way I think about charts. I'm interested in alternative UI designs for this kind of charting tool that don't use drag-and-drop - anyone seen any good ones?

I'm one of the developers of Lens, and I agree that it's not the right fit for every problem. The way I categorize the different types of interfaces in my mind is a spectrum from:

* "shelf based" drag & drop like Lens, Tableau and most spreadsheets

* Query-based, where you type a query using SQL or another grammar and choose from a template

* High level code like ggplot, Vega or Observable's new Plot

* Low level code like D3

Since you're a developer, maybe you'd benefit from looking at one of the high level visualization grammars.

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#19

Wouldn’t the missing link actually be a library like pandas? Spreadsheets and data visualization are themselves end-goals for specific tasks already.

I would consider pandas more of an alternative to spreadsheets. Both are used to create/massage/reorganize data. RAWGraphs is more like an alternative to seaborn? Albeit much more limited but much easier to use. The "missing link" marketing is a little odd, since it's essentially just a visualization library (you don't have to use it with spreadsheets if you don't want to)--but that's just marketing.

Re: RAWGraphs: missing link between spreadsheets and data visualization

#20
post #16
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tableau follows this drag-and-drop pattern, but in a much more explicit way than Kibana, with the ability to drop columns onto slots with (more-or-less) predictable effects. It's immensely polished - and priced accordingly. https://help.tableau.com/current/guides/get-started-tutorial... I'm actually not sure there's a better UI pattern for the nontechnical user. If you want to visualize both the slots and the options…

Maybe that's my problem: I'm a very technical user, and I find the drag thing baffling. Perhaps if I had less depth of knowledge I'd find it more intuitive?

Perhaps if you read the paper about the underlying algebra you'd find it more intuitive: https://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/polaris/polaris.pdf
Post reply on HN