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Created: Nov 20, 2007
Updated: Nov 23, 2009
Membership: Invitation Only
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Add legend to network visualization
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Problem:
There's no legend on our network visualization. Hinders proper understanding of the network connections.
Solution:
Add it in the visualization, or add a link to a page with the legend.
~ Original suggestion made by Bret Alan Hughes (sicjedi) in comment section of Network Tutorial page. Transferred here by Bowo (bowo).
Comments (1 - 7 of 7)
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Is it necessary to have the network visualizer provide the legend? Of course, that might be the ideal solution, but people are not understanding the whole visualization very well because of the lack of a legend right now. This situation calls out for some fast action. I suggest creating a quick legend wikipage (or even a mouse-hover popup) about the visualizer colors and then just add a link to it from (or near) where the network visualization is placed. This way you don't need to mess with the flash software (and may never need to, actually).
From my experience in computer-graphics (CG) film production, I have well learned that if you keep going for the ideal solution for things (as I saw many programmers try to do) you will constantly be behind the ball of the needs of the users. Or at least, pigeon-hole and limit your benefit to people. For The Lord of the Rings films, for example, although their success may seem like a foregone conclusion today, if I always had pipeline engineering go for the ideal, people today might have a very different opinion of the CG that was produced for these films. Sometimes I did go for, what I considered, an ideal solution, even against direct orders--but only when I felt it was critically important to do so.
I know coders love perfection; I do too. But the ultimate priority is, in alignment with your overall mission, meeting the needs and desires of the users, strategically as appropriate. |
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A very good idea and much needed. We've had to put on hold any upgrades to the flash software behind the network visualizer, as we've found much more pressing site maintenance issues that require our tech team's attention. If we do get around to upgrading the network visualizer, we will definitely be sure to include a legend.
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Yes, I've had this suggestion from a number of WE members in France
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@Bret (sicjedi): The +1 +2 thing is remnants of an older way to show support for a suggestion (before we have the 5 stars rating system). We now use the star ratings as it shows both number of support and quality of suggestion.
@Angus: Perhaps you'd like to remedy that? |
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Obviously I agree with the suggestion. :)
PS: I'm a little confused on the "+1", "+2", etc. in the title. Is this some sort of *internal* rating of some sort? I didn't notice any documentation about this. |
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Great idea - echoed by many others +1
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Here's a suggestion that could tie into this one: http://www.wiserearth.org/article/1ae9d0c88c330d7be1da326c9c1dfa34
(perhaps the filter list could show the color for each node type)