Edugraph Open Source for Networks with Graphs

How does Edugraph work?

On the website, you can see ten completed examples. On each page, you’ll see the process notation followed by the complete network that has been created based on the process notation. At the first example the construction of the process notation is explained thoroughly. Edugraph is therefore not a drawing programme but a conversion programme that converts formally structured text into images. This formal process notation is converted into instructions for Graphiz, which then automatically generates the images.

As the Graphiz image generator requires not only a description of the processes but also a description of the individual nodes, Edugraph generates a basic description of the nodes and saves that description in a file with the .nodes extension. That file can still be updated if you want to add extra text, images and links to it. Without updating the nodes file, a basic graph is created, but then without any additional text, links or images. That is all that is needed to ultimately generate the visualisation in a .svg (scalar vector graphics).

Edugraph can display both directed graphs and directed weighted graphs. The only difference is that the arc matrix is created in a different way for a directed weighted graph. In the case of a directed graph, this matrix contains only zeros and ones; in the case of a directed weighted graph, the values of the weights are represented instead of ones. You can also create an undirected graph using Edugraph. All you need to do is remove the arrowheads. This is a layout setting. Default is arrowhead="normal". When you change is to arrowhead="none", the arrowheads vannish. But to generate the adjacency matrix, you’ll still have some extra work to do. An undirected dig is symmetric. So, in the process notation, you will have to code both directions each time. Both a → b and b → a have to be defined.

Working with the user interface

The graphical user interface contains three menus:
(1) Make SVG & HTML met item 'Select and Convert Process notation', which you use to start the conversion for a standard directed graph. There, you must select the process notation with the extension .txt
(2) Make Weighted Graph met 'Select Weighted Graph Notatation', which you use to start the conversion for a targeted weighted graph. There, you must select the process notation with the extension .txt
(3) JSON to Process Noation file with 'Select JSON file' to automatically convert a JSON file into process notation. JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is an open standard file format and a data exchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects. It perfectly implements the triplet of the subject-object relationship, which is basic in every language.
This example shows how it can be done.
(4) A basic plain-text editor in the ‘Edit Files’ menu, allowing you to quickly make corrections to the process notation or the nodes file, should there be any errors. But in fact, you might as well use Notepad for that. It offers more options.

Once the process notation file with the .txt extension has been selected, the conversion of the process notation begins. Edugraph also creates a web page with the .html extension containing the process notation. A text file with the .matrix extension has been created in the same folder, containing the arc matrix.

Since the Graphiz image generator requires, in addition to the description of the processes, a description of the individual nodes, Edugraph generates a basic description of the nodes and saves that description in a file with the .nodes extension. That file can still be updated if you wish to add extra text, images and links to it. Without updating it, a basic graph is created, but without any extra text, links or images. That is all it takes to ultimately generate the visualisation in .svg (scalar vector graphics) format. The programme has also already copied all the standard layout settings to a file. These can still be adjusted, not via a menu – as is usually the case with a drawing programme – but by changing the settings in the .layout file.

The first run

After each run, Edugraph displays a report of what it has done. If the word “ERROR” appears in that report, then something has gone wrong. It is particularly strict when it comes to process notation. Double spaces are enough to terminate processing. The programme does, however, specify exactly which line the error is on. As the basic coding of the node definitions is carried out automatically, there will be very few errors in them. HOWEVER, if, in the process notation the spelling of a term differs slightly, you end up with duplicates in the automatically generated node definitions. ALWAYS check for duplicates and correct the process notation until there are no more duplicates. You will therefore need to delete the file containing the node definitions each time before you start a new run.

Adding extra text and images to the nodes

Even the inclusion of ordinary short text that does not require a line break will rarely cause any problems. All characters are admitted, except not functional square brackets. Square bracket may only be used to contain a erial number. For long texts (more than 70 characters), images and links, special instructions must be used, and these must strictly follow the grammar rules. These are as follows:

ltext(“Here’s the long bit…”)
May be used more than once.

img(“Here is the name of the image file with the extension”)
The image file must be located in the folder containing the process notation for processing.

url(“Here’s the link. You can use both absolute and relative URLs, e.g. ./text/text.html”)
The url must be placed directy under the heading, otherwise it will be ignored.

Layout settings

The programme also copied all the default layout settings to a file. These can still be adjusted, not via a menu – as is usually the case with a drawing programme – but by changing the settings in the .layout file.

Below is a list of the layout settings that can be adjusted:

rankdir="TB"; The direction of the excavator’s movement may also be BT, LR or RL

fontname="Verdana"; Font to be used

fontsize="14"; Font size

bgcolor="#ffffff"; Kleur van het achtergrond van de graaf in hexadecimale code

stylesheet="../svg_def.css"; Link to the CSS file

--- NODES ---

fontname="Verdana", Font to be used

fontsize="14", Font size

color="#101010", Font colour in hexadecimal code

bgcolor="#ffffff" Background colour in hexadecimal code for the ‘node’ heading

border="0" For the rim around the node

cellborder="1" For the border around a cell

cellpadding="3" Internal distance within the cell

cellspacing="0" External distance between the cells

63 Specifies when a line break is required for ltext

--- EDGES ---

decorate="false", Links the text to the arrow

style="solid", Values can also be dashes and full stops

arrowhead="normal", Nstandard arrowhead; ‘none’ is not an arrowheadt

penwidth="1.0", Thickness of the arrow

fontsize="14", Text font size

fontcolor="14", Text colour for text next to the arrow next to the arrows

fontname="Verdana", Font to be used for text next to the arrows

--- OUTPUT ---

SVG I default can be changed to NOSVG

NOPNG can be changed to PNG ook een .png beeld

NOPDF can be changed to PDF

HTML can be changed to NOHTML

However, do not change the format in any way! They are almost all literal Graphiz instructions.

You can find a comprehensive list of RGB hexadecimal colour codes here.

Optional parameters for processes

(1) With ;constraint:”false”, you can make the graph deviate from the original development? (TB, BT,LR of RL).
(2) You can also set the colour of each arrow individually by adding the instruction at that place ;color:”#ff0000”, for a red arrow for instrance. Default the coloro of the arrow is black.
(3) Just as with nodes, you can also add a URL to the text of a process next to the arrow. To do this, you simply need to use the expression ;URL:"hier komt dan de url".

For the time being, you can only use one of those optional parameters per process.

Download and installation

The programme runs on various platforms because it was created using Java. Given that it makes use of Graphiz you’ll have to install that as well. To install Java on Microsoft Windows, you need administrator authorisation. Make sure that both Java and Graphiz are included in the system’s startup paths. In Windows, you can check this by entering the command at the prompt: path <enter>.

After PATH= should you then view lines as:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Oracle\Java\javapath;

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-21\bin;

C:\Program Files\Graphviz\bin;

Once the programme has been compiled, you can run it from the bin folder containing the classes using:

java EDUGRAPH

You can also put that command in a batch file with the .bat extension in the bin folder. Then you can run it without having to go to the command prompt every time.

You can compile the source code at the command prompt from within the src folder using the command:

javac *.java -d ..\bin

The zip file, which you can download below, also contains folders with examples of process notations and node definitions. You can use this to practise a bit before you start working on your own projects. The binary has been compiled for Windows 10, 64-bit, using JDK 21. You can still find the binaries in the bin folder. Those binaries will also work with the latest version of Java, JDK 27 if you’re using Windows 10, 64-bit. They will be overwritten if you recompile.

Useful tips

If you use images in the layout, ensure that they are the same width. Three factors determine the width of a node: (1) The length of a line without a hyphenation break. (2) The length of the lines after hyphenation, and (3) the width of the images.

With SVG, it doesn’t matter what type of image you use. .png, .jpg and .gif are all fine, but if you also want to convert the graphic to PNG or PDF, it’s best to use .png. GIFs become invisible after conversion.

The SVG file that is generated already contains a link to a style sheet file extension.css. In the file where the layout is defined, you can change that link. So you can also control the formatting of the SVG there, just as you would in HTML. There are, however, a number of special cases. To indicate that the formatting rules apply to the SVG file, that file contains the line:
@namespace svg url(http://www.w3.org/2000/svg);
The items you wish to address must be preceded by svg| Examples:

svg|text
svg|a text
svg|polygon
svg|path

SVG consists of shapes and lines, rather than text like HTML. Even letters are vectors in SVG. A typical feature of SVG CSS is that, for example, if you want to colour an area grey, you then use fill:#e0e0e0; instead of background-color. To make a line red, use stroke:#ff0000;.

Dowload and install Edugraph Beta 1.01

If you’re not particularly tech-savvy, it’s best to leave the installation to an IT colleague or friend. Download Edugraph Beta 1.0: Edugraph.zip
(creative commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

The programme is open source, but that does not mean that the images created using it on this site are not copyrighted. If they are used for educational and non-commercial purposes, they are indeed licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Room for improvement

This is a project whose concept is promising but whose implementation is lacklustre due to a shortage of staff. The concept allows knowledge databases to be built whilst skipping the first two steps: ‘chunking and pre-processing’ and ‘entity and relation extraction’. It is these steps that require the use of enormous data centres. The current AI concept from OpenAI and Anthropic is based on piracy; with this concept, the construction of knowledge can be returned to the teachers and scientists who are providing for and building it.

The modern AI industry has stripped its vision of any basis in reality and is promoting objectives that it cannot achieve. The idea of endowing a machine with general intelligence and consciousness is a propaganda trope. Just as the tobacco industry funded research into diversionary tactics to flood the public debate with doubt, so this industry presents nonsensical talking points as existential questions and even funds research into them.

The implementation of the concept is currently still a one-man project, and that is a weakness. The fact that it is based on the open-source Graphiz is not the problem; rather, the fact that it interfaces with Graphiz via the operating system is. The programme is unable to detect errors if things go wrong there. This problem can be avoided by accessing the Graphiz libraries directly from C++. However, this would mean that different programmes would have to be compiled for the various operating systems, and I have neither a Linux nor an Apple computer. The user interface is also minimal. But when you consider how Graphiz itself was developed by Bell Laboratories and is still maintained by a team of three programmers, you can immediately see where the problem lies. This is a job for a team.

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