# Graph view

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/graph-view/150700>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [October 11, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/graph-view/150700 "2008-10-11T19:54:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 7:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/graph-view/150700/1 "2008-10-11T19:54:57Z")

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Hi,

I am working on the social networking application where I have to  
show all my connections in graph view uptoi some k levels of graph. I  
am almost done with the back end code and I am struggling to display  
the connections in the browser. Is there any library for the UI  
library which can simplify my task. Please let me know if you know  
some thing.

Thanks,  
Ramu

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/graph-view/150700/2 "2008-10-11T21:07:36Z")

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Hi Ramu,

This may not be ideal, but I’ve been using the dot graphing language to  
generate simple directed graph images and USEMAPs which can assign an  
arbitrary url link to each node. I’m using this in a prototype, not in  
a “production” system.

See [http://www.graphviz.org/](http://www.graphviz.org/) for information on the dot language, once  
you have dumped your connection information to the dot language you can  
use a command like the following

dot -Tcmapx -o base.map -Tgif -o base.gif base.dot

to build the image and the usemap which should be included in your view  
using something like the following.

\<%= File.read(“base.map”) %\>

\<%= image\_tag(“base.gif”, :usemap =\> ‘#map\_name’) %\>

I’d be interested to hear better solutions for this problem.

Best – Eric

“removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) writes:

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 9:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/graph-view/150700/3 "2008-10-11T21:19:19Z")

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Thanks for your reply. But, I am not looking for generating the gif  
file. Because If one of the node has 200 direct childs (connectons)  
then the look and feel of the graph wont be nice. So I am planning to  
show 7 to 10 contacts with the next previous buttons at the first  
level. And each node in the graph should be clickable and once I click  
on one of the node that node should expand as the root node and it  
should able to generate new graph with the clicked node as the root  
node. It should always show 5 levels with next and previous buttons.

Any help or suggestions.

Thanks,  
Ramu.