Save, Pause, and Load Sessions

[kaidatavis]

For the discussions related to the development of the Save, Pause, and Load Sessions in SeneseMap.

[RedayY]

So I would like to bring to attention to start a discussion when we would like to save information for the session.

Personally I think we should make SenseMap save the entire session information upon closing SenseMap as Data at that point is the most complete.

[kaidatavis]

The potential problem is that SenseMap may not get a chance to save the data, which will then be lost.

For example, if user closes/quits chrome, which also closes SenseMap, is it always guaranteed that SenseMap has the chance to save all the data before it gets shut down? In a less likely event when Chrome or the OS freezes, all the data will be lost.

I don't see any particular benefit to wait until there is more data. Instead, this can cause an user delay as he/she needs to wait for a relatively larger amount of data being sent to the server. Whereas when data is saved as they generate, user probably won't notice any delay because of the small amount each time.

[RedayY]

True, I understand your point, I was thinking how do we deal with incomplete nodes, what if the node is still loading as it shows at times in the console.

But it just occurred to me that we don't really care whether nodes are loading or not when getting their information. The Loading aspect was only important for history map.

[RedayY]

Update:

• Added Functionality to save sessions
• Added Functionality to add nodes to sessions (incomplete! for some reason it adds the nodes to the first session object in the database ? potential bug)

Points of Discussion:

• Could I have a Route in the rest api that takes a string and returns all matching session names with their session id ? ( I had this idea where a user can search for sessions and load them if he likes )
• For the Incomplete "adding node to session" I came across something that should not be happening, I am going to look into this next day as it is quite late now.
• Ohh and I managed to crash our Heroku server accidentally (sending too many requests).
• I commented line 18 in rest api sensemap model to make the api work again.

[kaidatavis]

True, I understand your point, I was thinking how do we deal with incomplete nodes, what if the node is still loading as it shows at times in the console. But it just occurred to me that we don't really care whether nodes are loading or not when getting their information. The Loading aspect was only important for history map.

This is a good point. It is probably better to wait until a page is fully loaded before sending the information to server. Currently, a node can be updated a few times, for title, favcon, redirection, etc. It will be too many server communications if each of these update is sent separately.

[kaidatavis]

I commented line 18 in rest api sensemap model to make the api work again.

Need to find what the error is and fix it. Just removing this line may cause problem for API uses it.

[RedayY]

Currently, a node can be updated a few times, for title, favcon, redirection, etc.

That is why I was thinking sending all at the end would be a better solution. Currently I am sending nodes to the DB every time a node gets pushed to the Node array.

[RedayY]

Need to find what the error is and fix it. Just removing this line may cause problem for API uses it.

Remember when you asked shaz in the meeting last few minutes to add "visibility" ? thats why it had an error. I think it is just a syntax issue.

[RedayY]

I currently stumbled upon a minor issue. Every time i push a node to a session ID it does not add it to the session with the corespondig session id, but rather to the first session. I do believe this is an API related mistake. Could anyone look into this with me.

Also @kaimdx , How exactly do i manipulate the fields of future nodes. In example adding "visibility" to them ?

[RedayY]

@kaimdx I also talked to Professor Dr Jaap Boeender, is there any chance we could put SenseMap public ally on GitHub ?

I think this would finally qualify @HumzahJavid and myself to use it for one of our modules (which means we having more time to work on it)

[kaidatavis]

That is why I was thinking sending all at the end would be a better solution. Currently I am sending nodes to the DB every time a node gets pushed to the Node array.

I misunderstood that you meant saving the nodes when a whole session is complete. Yes, it will be a good time to send a node to server when the node's loading is complete. Currently in browserProvenance line 124 sets the 'complete' status for a tab/node. You can trigger a new event/message there to invoke the node saving, such as dispatch.tabCompleted(node)

[kaidatavis]

How exactly do i manipulate the fields of future nodes. In example adding "visibility" to them ?

by adding a new attribute/field visibility to the node object and set its value as true or false?

[kaidatavis]

is there any chance we could put SenseMap public ally on GitHub ?

I have been thinking about this as well, and it is possible. Let's discuss this at the meeting on Monday.

[RedayY]

Update:

• Added further code to help with Saving, now nodes will be pushed when they are completed.
• Pausing now stops nodes appearing on the History Map, however they still get sent to the database.
• User Interface changes now allow you to view your Saved nodes on the database (yet require help to make it user interactive, I just cannot think of a proper way to implement it without chrome API complaining about inline JavaScript)
• Added a WiP button called "load sessions", this is what I was speaking of in the whatsapp group. Let the user Browse through all nodes. yet still WiP

Points of Discussion:

• I still have this strange issue with the Adding Node API, for some reason it adds the node to the first session on the database. This might be an API issue, if not please help me understand my mistake in my code.
• Line 18 in sesemap API sensemapmodel is still commented out.
• I get some random Library issue with D3. https://gyazo.com/44e166ff2c8447a38af0d0136f423ab5
• Heroku API tends to crash at times? could be due to me testing my code a few times.

I would really appreciate any help given with me solving the "user interactivity" issue for loading, as I am clueless right now

[kaidatavis]

@RedayY Thanks for the update. Let's discuss these at the meeting today. I added the discussion points to today's meeting wiki page.

Can you create such meeting from next week on? Just copy the template from Meeting Minutes template https://github.com/Vis4Sense/SenseMapExtension/wiki/Meeting-Minutes-template and add anything you want to discuss.

And then add a link on the sidebar https://github.com/Vis4Sense/SenseMapExtension/wiki/_Sidebar/_edit

[RedayY]

Update:

• Made Meeting Timeline for 17/10/17, you can find this also on the SideBar, but for those who want a direct link. Meeting 17/10/17.
• Cleaned UP, Code for Loading and Saving are now in Separate Documents.
• Removed Node OFF, also removed code from browser provenance to the Saving Document.
• Fixed Bugs with saving and pausing.
• Even more buttons.... Sorry, One for retrieving User Session Information and one to load the actual selected Session.
• Users can now Select their desired session that they want to load in the User Profile Box.
• Closed Login ISSUE for now.
• Made a new Branch for SaveLoad called rebuild-SaveLoad.

• Pushed current state of SaveLoad to rebuild-Login.

  Points of Discussion for meeting:

• Update in regards of Code
• Question for "nodes" to backend
• The Bug where nodes do not get added to the new session yet still remains, Can we investigate this please ?
• Ohh and I would like to push the changes from rebuild-login once everyone is happy with save and load.

PS: No API key in code 👍

[kaidatavis]

Still need to decide what happens to the tabs that are already open when a session is loaded. Currently this causes a conflict because 1) nodes for such tabs can have the same nodeID as the nodes from the saved session, and 2) SenseMap is not aware which node has its URL open in a tab and which doesn't.

[kaidatavis]

Commit 630e88e92f4ca9482b6611849ada709b1abb0126 now uses UUID for node id (https://www.npmjs.com/package/uuid), so it is very unlikely that two nodes will have the same Id.

[kaidatavis]

Save the historyMap.model to the database instead of nodes and tree.