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CONTRIBUTING.md

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Contributions to Paths.js are always welcome! If you feel like helping, be sure to contact me through Github, so that efforts are not duplicated.

The library is currently written in Javascript, using the ES2015 standard. This is then compiled with Babel to run into today's browsers.

If you do not feel like contributing to the library directly, you can always help by spreading the word, or by improving the demo. I am also developing another demo, based on React.

How can I help?

There are a few things that Paths.js still needs; I will try to keep an updated list here. Of course, other contributions are also welcome - this is just the list of the stuff that I have in mind.

Improve an existing chart

First, there are improvements to be made to existing charts. In particular, the Graph chart is currently pretty slow and unoptimized. This chapter has an overview of existing algorithms for force-directed networks layout, and it would be nice to try out some of the ideas in there. The tree layout algorithm is also quite simplistic in its current implementation, and this chapter features a few possible improvements.

Create a new chart

There are some charts that are still missing from Paths.js, in particular circle packings and the Circos diagram.

Improve testing and documentations

This does not need much explanation. :-) In particular, I would be happy to receive feedback on how the documentation can be improved. As the author of the library, I happen to understand how to use it fairly well, but I am sure there are pitfalls for beginners.

New general features

I have been tinkering with the idea of allowing arbitrary 2d transformations to be applied to points just before computing the paths. This would allow, for instance, to add a fisheye effect to existing graphs.

Porting to other languages

There are bindings to use Paths.js with Scala.js. A nice contribution would be to create bindings for other languages, such as ClojureScript or TypeScript.

Workflow

The simplest way to develop in Paths.js right now is to use the React demo together with NPM links.

As a preliminary, clone both the library and the demo:

git clone https://github.com/andreaferretti/paths-js.git paths-js
git clone https://github.com/andreaferretti/paths-js-react-demo.git react-demo

Install their dependencies:

cd paths-js
npm install
cd ../react-demo
npm install

Make the library globally available:

cd ../paths-js/dist/node
npm link

Then link it from the demo:

cd ../../../react-demo
npm link paths-js

Whenever you want to work on the library, tell NPM to compile it in background:

cd ../paths-js
npm run watch

In another shell, start the demo application with live reloading:

cd ../react-demo
npm start

Now, whenever you make a modification, either to the library or the demo, everything will be recompiled in background and the page will refresh to show the effect.

Guidelines

There are not many restrictions on how to contribute. Just be sure to follow the general philosophy and add tests for your work (see the existing tests as an example).

Paths.js does not currently depend on external libraries, and it will remain so. There are a couple of reasons for this:

  • it is currently very hard to provide a library that depends on third-party libraries in a Javascript environment, while still making sure that this will work with both AMD or Common.js modules, and also as a standalone script
  • it helps to keep the size of the library reasonable

Personally, I would have benefited from a collection library, such as Ramda or Lodash, but ES2015 new style of iteration and ES5 Array methods make this more tolerable.

Cloning everything

If you want to clone all repositories related to Paths.js (this is actually more of a reminder to myself), just issue the command

git clone [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-js.git paths
git clone https://github.com/andreaferretti/paths-js.wiki.git wiki
git clone [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-js-demo.git demo
git clone -b gh-pages [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-js-demo.git demo-page
git clone [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-js-react-demo.git react-demo
git clone -b gh-pages [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-js-react-demo.git react-demo-page
git clone [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-scala-js.git scala-js
git clone -b gh-pages [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-scala-js.git scala-js-docs
git clone [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-scala-js-demo.git scala-js-demo
git clone -b gh-pages [email protected]:andreaferretti/paths-scala-js-demo.git scala-js-page