Views

Introduction

Producers and consumers of data want to have data presented in tables and graphs -- "views" on the data. They want this for a range of reasons, from simple eyeballing to drawing out key insights,

graph LR data[Your Data] --> table[Table] data --> grap[Graph] data --> geo[Map]

This guide shows you how you can create beautiful views for your data on the DataHub.

Features

  • Simple things are simple: adding a bar chart or line chart is fast and easy -- seconds to do and requiring minimal knowledge. Views are created in a simple declarative syntax
  • Powerful and extensible: complex and powerful graphing is also powerful.
  • Reuse: leverage the power of existing specs like [Vega][] (and tools like Vega and Plotly)
  • Transform your data prior to visualization
  • Composable: the views spec is independent but composable with other data package specs (and even usable on its own)

How it works

You can add a view for your data simply by describing your view in a simple declarative syntax (in JSON) and then adding to the datapackage.json for your dataset.

For example, suppose you have data in a csv that looks like this:

x y z
1 8 5
2 9 7

Then you could describe your view like this:

{
  "type": "line",
  "group": "x",
  "series": [ "y", "z" ]
}

Finally, you need to connect your view with the underlying data source in the datapackage.json

...
"resources": [{
    "name": "mydata"
    "path": "mydata.csv",
    "schema": ... schema for the 
}]
views: [{
    "name": "graph-1",
    "title": "My awesome view"

    // the data to connect to this view
    "resources": ["mydata"]

    // specType here is optional as simple is the default
    "specType": "simple"
    "spec": {
        "type": "line",
        "group": "x",
        "series": [ "y", "z" ]
    }
}}

To learn more see the examples live examples below.

Examples

In this section, examples of using Data Package views are provided. Each example has a README section with small tutorial.

Simple graph spec

Simple graph spec is the easiest and quickest way to specify a view in a Data Package. Using simple graph spec publishers can generate graphs, e.g., line and bar charts.

Vega graphs

Publishers can also describe graphs using Vega specifications:

Maps

At the moment, we only support .geojson format:

Tables and Transforms

In the following examples, we demonstrate how transforms can be used in Data Package views. Transformed data will be displayed as table views.

More Information