Déjàvis

Déjàvis is a sandbox for data visualizations. It allows you to develop pluggable visualizations in a declarative style and deploy them to dejavis.org. You no longer need to start from a plain HTML file. The HTML frame is defined by the sandbox. You can modify the HTML using placeholders (name, description, author) which are specified in a manifest.json file. Of course you can manipulate the DOM with Javascript at any time.

Workflow

The dejavis command line utility lets you create, serve and deploy your visualization.

1. Create a visualization using a skeleton

dejavis create your_vis

This generates a skeleton containing an example visualization. The example is written in CoffeeScript, which is really great for writing expressive code in less lines of code. For the visualization part Unveil.js is used. However this is just a starting point. You can throw everything away and use your favorite frameworks.

2. Adjust manifest.json

Meta information, like name, description, author are specified here. Also the scripts that should be loaded need to be set.

3. Serve it locally and start development

dejavis serve

4. Publish to dejavis.org

You need to have your code in a public Github repository in order to deploy your work. The name property of the manifest.json file needs to be unique as your visualization will live at http://dejavis.org/your_vis.

dejavis publish

This command isn't implemented yet. Please contact me via Github. I'll publish your visualization manually.

Installation

dejavis is a command-line utility written in CoffeeScript and running on Node.js. The included server uses the Express.js web framework.

Node.js

git clone http://github.com/ry/node.git
./configure
make
make install

CoffeeScript

git clone http://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script.git
sudo bin/cake install

Express.js

curl -# http://expressjs.com/install.sh | sh

Dejavis

git clone http://github.com/michael/dejavis.git
sudo cake install

Features

• Create a visualization using a skeleton
• Framework independent
• Local server for development
• Free deployment to dejavis.org
• Compiles .coffee files on the fly while the local server is running