Link Analysis¶
The Link Analysis widget allows you to visually represent relationship in your data.
Link analysis focuses on networks and connections in a dataset, and by using a network of interconnected links and nodes, the Link Analysis widget graphically displays relationships which are hard to identify and analyze in raw data. Nodes and links play a pivotal role in building your link analysis visualization, to find out more information go to this page.
Depending on the type of dataset, different layouts can be used to display nodes and links in a chart. In Rulex Studio, the link analysis layouts available are:
Tree Layout
Force Directed Layout
Layered Digraph Layout
Circular Layout
In order to start working on a Link Analysis widget, users have to choose the desired layout and drag it onto the slide, then they can add attributes to start displaying data.
Rulex Studio gives you complete control over the layout and configuration of every single link analysis layout customization.
A Link Analysis widget is divided into different sections, each of them controlling a characteristic of the link analysis representation:
Link analysis input menu: located as a vertical button bar at the left of the link analysis, it controls the input definition and all the related options which lead to a modification of nodes and links representation.
Link analysis layout menu: opened through the widget context menu, it contains all the graphical configurations which do not require any point or bar re-evaluation.
Input Menu¶
Similar to Plots widgets, the link analysis input menu is represented as a vertical button bar located to the left of the selected Link Analysis widget. For each graphical dimension available on the selected link analysis layout, a dedicated button will be enabled to allow the user to drop new attributes on the considered dimension.
The dimensions of Link Analysis widgets are different from those available for Plots widgets. The dimension icons and the corresponding GOLD references available are listed in the table below:
Button |
Name |
Description |
GOLDref |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Layout Type |
Button related to the overall link analysis layout configurations. From this button users can modify the type of link analysis layout considered. |
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|
Node Layout |
Button related to the node graphical dimension. |
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|
Link Layout |
Button related to the link graphical dimension. |
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|
Configuration |
Button related to the advanced configuration of the link analysis representation. Users can drag an attribute on this icon only when the Force Directed Layout is selected, for the other types of link analysis this icon is greyed out. |
Input menu is not only controlling input definition and link with plot graphical dimension, but it enables the user to modify a full set of plot configurations which are strictly related to data, since their modification triggers automatically a plot re-evaluation. All these options are divided according to the graphical dimension they affect. You can change them by using the Dimension option menu opened by right-clicking on the corresponding dimension button.
In the corresponding page, a presentation of all the different Dimension option menus can be found.
Link Analysis Dimensions¶
All the different layouts of the Link Analysis widget have two different dimensions: node and links.
Nodes are objects or entities interconnected with each other.
To start using any of available layouts in the Link Analysis widget group, users must drag a nominal attribute onto the Node Layout icon in the left-side input vertical menu.
Links are the lines that connect nodes in the chart and are the visual representation of a relationship. A link connects two nodes, if these nodes have a relationship. To draw links, you create relationship types that connect nodes based on common field values.
To connect the previously defined nodes with a link, users need to drag two nominal attributes onto the Link Layout icon in the left-side input vertical menu, indicating the hierarchical relationship between nodes. In Rulex Studio the relationship between the link attributes is defined as parent and child.
Note
The attribute dragged onto the Node Layout icon and those used in the Link Layout icon can belong to two different datasets.
To move around in your Link Analysis widget, you can zoom in-out by pressing CTRL and moving the mouse wheel: if the mouse wheel movement goes upwards, a zoom in is performed, while if the mouse wheel movement does downwards, a zoom out is performed.
The dimension options menus can be opened by right-clicking on the corresponding dimension button in the left input vertical menu.
Each one of the different dimension buttons opens a different dimension menu. Therefore, we are going to describe them one by one in another page: node option menu and link option menu.
Link Analysis Layout¶
Once the widget has been dragged onto the slide and the required attributes have been dragged on it, users can double-click its frame or use the widgets context menu to open the Layout options pane.
The Layout options pane is made of one section, the LAYOUT tab.
All the options available in the Layout options pane can be customized in parametric mode.
Users can find all the available options and the corresponding GOLD references in the table below.
To know more about GOLD, go to the corresponding page.
Subsection |
Option |
Description |
GOLD Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
Layout options |
Background color |
It defines the background color of the Link Analysis widget. By clicking it, users can select Standard colors, otherwise they can use the color picker or insert the color code, which can be: Hex, Rgb, Hsl, Hsv. The default color is white. |
|
Initial scale |
From this spin box, users can define the Link Analysis widget when first opening the view. |