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Oracle APEX Region Type Plugin: D3 Force Network Chart

This is a D3 force implementation, playground and Oracle APEX plugin, which uses the
D3 visualization library to render a network layout. It has the following features:

  • Works with APEX versions >= 5.1.4 or standalone in every HTML page
  • Interactive customization wizard
  • Source data can be a XML string, JSON string or JavaScript Object (JSON)
  • Link directions are visible and self references are rendered in a nice way - have a look in the online demos
  • Node sizes are calculated between given min and max values depending on the SIZEVALUE attribute in your source data
  • Node colors are assigned depending on the given COLORVALUE attribute in your source data - if you provide a IMAGE attribute for a node, then the image is used instead of a fill color
  • Optional tooltips depending on the given INFOSTRING attribute in your source data
  • If you have a node attribute called LINK, you can define on which event the URL should be called - default is dblclick - try it out in the online demos by double clicking the node KING
  • Nodes can be pinned and the current positions can be saved and loaded to predefine a layout - optionally you can align the nodes to a grid when they are dragged around
  • Labels can be wrapped and placed after force end to prevent overlapping (optional, per default switched off)
  • With the lasso mode you can select nodes and implement a graphical multi select
  • The graph can be zoomed between the two configured min and max scale factors
  • There is a JavaScript API to interact with the graph (API reference), also including 12 events (node click, node double click, node contextmenu, node mouse enter, node mouse leave, link click, lasso start, lasso end, force start, force end, render end, resize)
  • All 12 events are available in APEX - the plugin region can be AJAX refreshed and triggers then also apexbeforerefresh and apexafterrefresh

Requirements

  • APEX 5.1.4 or higher, if used as a plugin
  • A modern browser, which is able to work with SVG and CSS3 - for more informations see the D3 Wiki

Installation

APEX

  • Download the latest version
  • Install the plugin by importing the sql file in the folder apex-plugin

Any HTML page

  • Download the latest version
  • See dist/example.html and docs/tutorial-1-getting-started.html

Credits

I would like to say THANK YOU to all the people who share their knowledge. Without this sharing I would not have been able to create this D3 implementation. Special thanks to Mike Bostock for his great library and to Carsten Czarski for mentoring me on Oracle APEX plugin development.

Roadmap

4.0.0 (200x-xx-xx) in planning (time flies, I know...)

  • Update to current D3 version
  • Devide code base into modularized graph code and APEX plugin code in different repos to make clear, that the graph function can run in any HTML environment

Changelog

This D3 force implementation uses semantic versioning.

Please refer to the documentation for more informations on how to get started and an overview of all graph methods. Please use for all comments and discussions the issues functionality on GitHub.

3.1.2 (2021-10-13)

  • Fixed: #49 - Link labels: Long texts are clipped on both sides when they are too long - should only be clipped at the end. Thanks to github.com/apex-michael to report the issue.

3.1.1 (2021-03-11)

  • Fixed: #43 - Images blurry in chrome and edge. Thanks to github.com/chrizwagner to report the bug.

3.1.0 (2019-06-02)

ATTENTION: You need at least APEX 5.1.4 to be able to import the plugin in your APEX apps. If you need to support older APEX versions (at least 4.2) then download the plugin release 3.0.0.

  • New option forceTimeLimit (API reference)
  • Nodes have now also a background color when an background image is defined (useful for images with transparency)
  • New Link attribute LABEL (API reference), which is rendered as a text along the link path and fires the link click event when clicked (the label is easier to click then the link itself - so we have here a usability improvement)
  • Two new helper methods to get the center of the graph (border box) or the SVG viewport:

Thanks are going to github.com/Ignacius68 for the valuable feedback and all the beta testing.

3.0.0 (2018-11-26)

Because of breaking API changes we have a new major realease:

  • Overall improvements
    • Better responsiveness by implementing a resize observer (native in Chrome since v64, polyfill for other browsers)
      • Default true for the following options: zoomToFitOnForceEnd (was false in the past), zoomToFitOnResize (new option), keepAspectRatioOnResize (new option)
      • When setting the option useDomParentWidth to true together with the previous mentioned defaults you can achieve a responsiveness like with images set to width 100% - see the online demo and play around with it
    • All zoom relevant API methods are no longer depending on the zoomMode - they work simply always
    • The zoomMode sets only the ability for the end user to use zoom and pan
  • Fixed
    • APEX plug-in - sample data is rendered before live data (#32) - thanks are going to github.com/Ignacius68 for finding this bug
  • New events
  • New options
  • Changed methods
    • zoom has now a parameter duration (API reference)
    • transform has now a parameter duration (API reference)
    • useDomParentWidth (API reference) no longer needs a render call to take into effect - it works now immediately; Please remove unneccesary render calls to save CPU and battery time
  • Deprecated methods for clean API
    • zoomSmooth - can be replaced with the zoom method (API reference), please provide a appropriate duration parameter (default is 1500 with zoomSmooth)

Thanks are going to github.com/Ignacius68 for the idea for option labelSplitCharacter and all the beta testing.

2.2.0 (2018-09-29)

Thanks are going to github.com/Ignacius68 for the inspiration.

2.1.2 (2018-01-07)

  • Fixed again :-(
    • APEX plugin - semi colon in region query no longer throws an error
    • Was a copy paste bug... no comments please...

2.1.1 (2018-01-06)

  • Fixed: Nodes stick on the top left corner in APEX 5.x under some circumstances
  • Improved docs: getting started section

2.1.0 (2017-12-30)

  • New option wrapLabels with a configurable max width - thanks to Ekaterina & Andrey for the idea
  • New option zoomToFitOnForceEnd to fit the graph in the available space on force end (like the automatic label placement) - needs the zoomMode switched on to work properly
  • New API method zoomToFit, which is used by the option zoomToFitOnForceEnd - now you can do things like example.width(800).height(600).zoomToFit() :-)
  • APEX enhancements: the graph is listen to the event apexwindowresized and the click on the navigation control button in the universal theme - together with the option useDomParentWidth the graph is then always using the available width
  • Changed: Use JSDoc to generate documentation and API reference. Relocate documentation from own Wiki to GitHub pages
  • Reorganized repository structure
  • Fixed: Standalone version not loading after APEX 5.1 bugfix
  • Fixed: APEX plugin - semi colon in region query no longer throws an error

2.0.3 (2016-12-13)

  • Fixed: #18 - APEX 5.1: jQuery reports syntax error and graph stops loading, if "Page Items to Submit" is not configured - thanks to github.com/KiralyCs to report this issue

2.0.2 (2016-07-17)

  • Fixed: #12 - tooltips not showing correctly, if showLabels are set to false - thanks to github.com/pocelka to report this issue

2.0.1 (2015-11-18)

  • Fixed: Fixed positions not working in initial data in v2.0.0 - thanks to github.com/rlashaw to report this issue
  • Move online demo and documentation to own wiki for better maintenance

2.0.0 (2015-11-07)

  • New option preventLabelOverlappingOnForceEnd: If set to true the labels are aligned with a simulated annealing function to prevent overlapping when the graph is cooled down (correctly on the force end event and only on labels, who are not circular) - thanks to Philippe Duchateau to ask for such a feature and all the testing
  • New option labelPlacementIterations: The number of iterations for the preventLabelOverlappingOnForceEnd function - default is 250 - as higher the number, as higher the quality of the result - for details refer to the description of the simulated annealing function from the author Evan Wang
  • New behaviour: the font size and weight of a label is aligned when you hovering a node with your mouse - this helps you to find the right label in graphs with many nodes
  • New possible value dotted for the links STYLE attribute: Now you have solid, dashed and dotted available for link styles
  • New link attribute INFOSTRING: Like for nodes - this is shown as a tooltip, if tooltips are switched on in the configuration and you hover the links; ATTENTION: links are very narrow, so this plays nice together with the zoomMode; thanks again to Philippe Duchateau for the ideas of this and the next feature :-)
  • New link attribute COLOR: This must be a HTML color code like green or #00ff00 because of SVG standard 1.1 does not support the inheritance of colors to markers and the graph function hast to manage dynamic markers for the colors and therefore the color names are used as identifiers for the markers
  • New API method/option transform: behaves like a normal getter/setter (the zoom and zoomSmooth methods implements only setters) and can be used in the conf object to initialize the graph with different translate/scale factors than [0,0]/1 - works only, if the zoomMode is set to true - the current transform value(an object) is rendered in the customization wizard conf object text area like all other options when the current value is different then the default value {"translate":[0,0],"scale":1}
  • Fixed: With the option alignFixedNodesToGrid it was possible to place nodes direct on the graphs left or top border - now the nodes are placed to the gridSize value, if the current position is smaller or equal the half of the gridsize
  • Fixed: Provided fixed positions on startup not correctly set
  • Fixed: No node shown if there is only one record return (thanks to Kenny Wang for reporting this issue)
  • Code integration of the D3 lasso and labeler plugins - no more need to load the files for this plugins
  • Code replacement of the XML to JSON converter X2JS with an own one
  • Code refactoring against JSHint: This refactoring is also the reason for a new major version (API changed: renamed graph function, integration of libs, new XML parser)
  • Update to D3 v3.5.6

1.4.1 (2015-08-05)

  • Fixed "Tooltip on wrong positions in complex layouts". This was also the case with APEX 5 and universal theme. Thanks to Philippe Duchateau for telling me about this problem.

1.4.0 (2015-08-03)

  • New possible node attribute COLORLABEL: Since there is an option to render a legend, it makes no sense to render the color names as legend labels, if the colorScheme "direct" is used to directly deliver CSS color codes (thanks to Philippe Duchateau for telling me about the problems); With other color schemes it is ok, since the COLORVALUE information can be any string like department names or ids or city names or whatever; To not to break existing graphs, the COLORVALUE is used as the legend label, if the COLORLABEL is not given in the nodes attributes
  • New option onLinkClickFunction: You can register a function which is called when a link is clicked (thanks to Niels de Bruijn for requesting this feature); It is not so easy to click a link, because the links are so narrow - if this option is needed I recommend to switch on the zoom mode - with zoom and pan it feels more natural to click links
  • New option setDomParentPaddingToZero: Boolean. If true, the style padding: 0px; is added to the graphs DOM parent element; If false, this style is removed from the graphs DOM parent element
  • The customization wizard shows now in the configuration object only non-default options; This reduces the size of the configuration object and is more transparent
  • New API methods options and optionsCustomizationWizard: with this API methods you can get and set the whole configuration object with one call; options ouput includes all options, which are accessible via the API methods including the registered event functions (no APEX dynamic actions, only the functions under the report attributes); optionsCustomizationWizard output includes only the options, which are accessible via the customization wizard; With both methods you can set all options which are accessible via the API in one call
  • Restructuring the online API reference method overview

1.3.0 (2015-06-07)

  • New option showLoadingIndicatorOnAjaxCall: if set to true, a loading indicator is shown when used as a APEX plugin during the AJAX calls; If you want to show the loading indicator in a standalone implementation you can show and hide the loading indicator directly with the API method showLoadingIndicator (SHOW: example.showLoadingIndicator(true); HIDE: example.showLoadingIndicator(false);)
  • Update to D3 v3.5.5

1.2.1 (2015-06-02)

  • Fixed "Customize wizard jumps down when dragged on pages with hidden or fixed elements"

1.2.0 (2015-05-31)

  • Refactor render function, so that the returned graph function is only one line of code and does not spoil the console when debug is set to true
  • New option zoomMode (thanks to Alexej Schneider to ask for this feature and for testing the new version and his valuable feedback): I tried this before and was not happy with the solution, because the pan were disturbing the nodes drag functionality - now it is working :-) ATTENTION: When zoomMode is set to true then the lassoMode is only working with the pressed alt or shift key KNOWN BUG: In iOS it is after the first zoom event no more possible, to drag a node - instead the whole graph is moved - this is, because iOS Safari provide a wrong event.target.tagName. Also a problem: your are not able to press the alt or shift key - if you want to use lasso and zoom together on a touch device, you have to provide a workaround; One possible way is to provide a button, which turns zoom mode on and off with the API zoomMode method - then the user has the choice between these two modes - not comfortable, but working
  • New option minZoomFactor: The minimum possible zoom factor
  • New option maxZoomFactor: The maximum possible zoom factor
  • New method zoom: Can be used to programatically zoom to a point in the graph with the three parameters centerX, centerY and viewportWidth; read more...
  • New method zoomSmooth: Does the same as the zoom method, but animated in a nice way: read more...
  • New method nodeDataById: Helper function to get the data of one node. Can be helpful for the two new zoom methods to programatically focus a single node
  • New option showLegend: renders a legend for all (distinct) COLORVALUE attribute values of the nodes
  • New option showLabels: Labels are not new - a label is rendered, when a node has a filled attribute LABEL - new is the possibility to switch on and off the labels globally
  • Hint in the customize wizard, that the configuration object has to be saved in the region attributes to save the configuration permanently (thanks to Renato Nobre to ask me a question about this topic)
  • Reorganize the options in the customize wizard thematically: node/link/graph related options

1.1.0 (2015-04-19)

  • New option lassoMode: boolean - if set to true you can select nodes with a lasso
  • New events for lasso mode: lassostart, lassoend - if You register to this events, you get as data an object with all nodes, number of selected nodes and also a APEX compatible string of selected node IDs in the form of the multi select lists like 1234:567:890 - for details and examples see API reference
  • New option alignFixedNodesToGrid: boolean - if set to true nodes are aligned to the nearest grid position on the drag end event - works only, if pinMode is set to true (thanks to Carsten Czarski for showing me an use case for this option)
  • New option gridSize: numeric - default 50 - grid size for the new option alignFixedNodesToGrid
  • New possible node attribute IMAGE: URL to an image - if you provide this attribute in your source data (SQL query with the APEX plugin), the node is rendered with an background image instead of a fill color (idea by Andrew Weir, thank you for your response!) - attention: this is definitly slowing down your visualization - please do not complain about this fact ;-)
  • New possible node attributes fixed, x, y (all lower case, because of these are also internal attributes of the D3 force layout): With these attributes you are able to predefine a layout already in your data (SQL query)
  • New API method moveFixedNodes(x,y): moves all fixed nodes in the provided direction - exampleGraphVariable.moveFixedNodes(10,-5).resume(); adds 10 to x position and -5 to y position on all fixed nodes - ATTENTION if alignFixedNodesToGrid is set to true this can have unexpected behavior - you must then provide values greater then grid size halved to see any changes on your graph, otherwise the positions are falling back to the nearest (current) grid position
  • New API method releaseFixedNodes
  • New API method resume: with this method you can resume the graph force without a complete render cycle - e.g. you call the new method releaseFixedNodes and to take your changes into effect you can call then resume exampleGraphVariable.releaseFixedNodes().resume();
  • New API method render: with this method you can render the graph with a complete render cycle - when used standalone there is no difference between the start and the render method - when used as APEX plugin the start method try to fetch new data with the query provided in your region source and call then the render method - with the render method you are now able to rerender the graph in APEX without fetching new data exampleGraphVariable.minNodeRadius(4).maxNodeRadius(20).render();
  • API method positions: In the past this method was only used to predefine a layout before rendering the graph - now you can call this method also after rendering is complete and with calling the new method resume you can apply new positions at runtime without rerender the graph exampleGraphVariable.positions([...]).resume(); (thanks to Mark Russellbrown to show me an unconventional use case for my force implementation and therefore force me to think about modification after rendering ;-)
  • New third keyword for the option nodeLinkTarget in the customize wizard: "domContainerID" - if you use this keyword, then each event on a node, that opens the link is using the DOM container ID of your graph for the link target - this means, all your links are opened in the same browser window/tab, but a second graph is using a different browser window/tab (thanks to Philippe Duchateau for the question regarding this option) - please have a look in the API reference for more details
  • Reducing the rendered DOM data by removing unnecessary id attributes on nodes, links and labels
  • Input data can now be also an object: you have the choice to deliver graph data in three formats (XML string, JSON string or JavaScript Object) - when used as APEX plugin the data is transferred as text - your query has to select a single clob result and this clob can also be a XML or JSON string - you have the choice depending on your database version and existing libraries
  • Fixed "Dragging a node triggers a click event"

1.0.5 (2015-02-21)

  • Fixed "Links not correctly rendered in IE 9, 10, 11 when showLinkDirection is set to true" (found by Philippe Duchateau, thank you for your response!)

1.0.4 (2015-02-15)

  • Fixed "APEX - unable to view datasets > 32k" (found by Andrew Weir, thank you for your response!)
  • Improved error handling: errors are shown as single nodes with error text as label
  • Empty nodes array does no longer break render function
  • Positions are rounded on export to save space for APEX parameter item

1.0.3 (2015-01-30)

  • Fixed "APEX - AJAX refresh not working without setting items to submit in region source"
  • Correct links from customize wizard to online API documentation
  • Activate also debug mode, when customize wizard is started
  • Some small cosmetic changes

1.0.2 (2015-01-30)

  • Fixed "Configuration - Boolean values are not correct initialized" (found by Carsten Czarski, thank you for your response!)
  • Fixed "APEX - Page items to submit not working on AJAX refresh" (found by Carsten Czarski, thank you for your response!)