Planisphere

Generate, view, and export vega.js and vega-lite.js plots from the command line or a Clojure REPL.

Installation

To use the CLI executable, clone this repo and run the contents of the cli-executable folder.

To use as a Clojure library, add the following dependency to your project or build file:

[planisphere "0.1.9"]

About

Planisphere is a fork/continuation of https://github.com/yieldbot/vizard. It keeps vizard’s nice vega spec generation facilities and offers a complete re-write of the gutty-works, adding these notable features:

• The ability to use a headless, pure Java browser to render plot specifications via JavaScript. (no PhantomJS required!)

• The ability to fetch the SVG string of a rendered plot and export it to a dang-ol jay-peg.

• A command line interface to render JSON files containing Vega or Vega-Lite specifications.

• The ability to view multiple plots when using a desktop browser.

• Vega and Vega-Lite specification validation.

• Other operational improvements around: client-server error handling, serialization.

Prerequisites

• Oracle Java 8 with JavaFX

Usage

1. Clojure API: see the planisphere.api.core docs below

2. Command line: see the help summary (below)

Configuration Options & CLI

Default Configuration Options

;; default configuration map

{:log-level :info
 :host "localhost"
 :port 10666
 :headless? false
 :vega-schema "vega-schema.json"
 :vega-lite-schema "vega-lite-schema.json"
 :ascii "ascii.txt"}

Overriding Default Configuration Options

From clojure, you can provide custom configuration options by passing a map into planisphere.api.core/start-app, e.g.:

(start-app {:port 8080 :headless? true})

From the cli, configuration parameters can be passed in as options:

./planisphere -h
16-11-30 21:28:04 rpurrier-mbp INFO [planisphere.cli.core:98] - Configuration options: {:host "localhost", :port 10666, :help true}
16-11-30 21:28:04 rpurrier-mbp DEBUG [planisphere.cli.core:71] - Exiting: 0
 Usage: planisphere [options] spec-type
Spec Types:
 vega
 vega-lite

Options:
  -H, --host HOST          localhost  Server host
  -p, --port PORT          10666      Port number (0 = first available port)
      --headless                      Use the headless browser client
  -l, --log-level LEVEL               Server & client logging level
  -o, --output-dir DIR                Output directory for rendered plots
  -d, --input-dir SPECDIR             Directory containing vega or vega-lite specs
  -f, --input-file SPEC               File containing a vega or vega-lite spec
  -h, --help

Important knobs

:headless? toggles the browser used for plot rendering: true = opens the headless jBrowserDriver client. false = opens your default desktop browser client.

:log-level controls console logging output for both server and client. For example, set to :debug when you need to dig into a potential JavaScript error in your browser console.

Other knobs

:vega-schema and :vega-lite-schema locations of the JSON schemas that are used for validation of Vega and Vega-Lite specs.

:ascii change the ascii art on the landing page.

Clojure API: planisphere.api.core

send-spec

(send-spec m & {:keys [return], :or {return [:id :svg]}})

Send a :spec of :type :vega or :vega-lite to the client browser. Given map should also contain a user-specified :id . :spec will be validated against the corresponding Vega/Vega-Lite schema before being sent for rendering.

start-app

(start-app user-opts)

Start the application server and connect a client browser. Client can be configured as headless for server-side execution.

stop-app

(stop-app)

Terminate the client session and the application server.

svg->jpeg

(svg->jpeg filename svg)

Render an svg string to a jpeg file.

validate-spec

(validate-spec m & {:as schemas})

Validate a Vega or Vega-Lite plot :spec. :spec can be given as a Clojure map or JSON string. This function can be used outside of the start-app workflow.