Color and text in the new 1.1

[GabrielMPhi]

I'm not sure where to put my comment. It's not a bug repport or a feature request rather than feedback on the new 1.1. I just downloaded and installed the 1.1 version. It's way faster and all, but I see some change are "for me at least" problematic.

• The default text size is too big when there are a lot of links between nodes. The result is unreadable graph except when you zoom way in. I went to size 1 in the options and it's better, but not as nice as it was in previous versions. And the the text is war farther to the nodes, which makes it strange. Here is my graph with the default settings
• The colors when not hover or clicked are very dark (in my already dark mode). It might be just preference, but the previous layout was better looking for my taste.

[agerardin]

Thanks for your feedback @GabrielMPhi. You have closed this issue, does it mean it is resolved for you? I understand it is quite a departure from the previous look. There are a lot of variables to adjust for and it is still a work in progress to figure out something that works for everybody.

One of the reason for the change is that in the previous version, the font were squashed when zoomed in. I am trying to take the scale into account now. The current adjustments are the FONT_SIZE and RELATIVE_FONT_SIZE. More tweaking can happen as well, such as less of importance of the global scale and/or node weight on the final label size.

For the unfocused nodes to get more transparent, the rationale was to make it easier to navigate large graphs. We could make that an option as well so you can get something closer to the original decision that did not emphasize selection as much.

Let me know your thoughts. It is hard to come up with the perfect balance to fit everyone's taste.

PS: Below is a 5000nodes graph with FONT-SIZE=2. It becomes quite readable.

[GabrielMPhi]

Thanks for this detailled anwswer. The issue is not "resolved", but I felt strange saying it was an issue, since it was more a taste things and I did not want to push my aesthetic preference.

It's indeed a big departure from the old look. I find it a bit more difficult to navigate. Take your exemple, but add longer note/tag/nodes names and it's easily more confused. I don't know how, but the older setup managed well to make my long notes names appear clearly without obscuring the overall graph.

But on the other side, I clearly understand the need technical issue and make it scale. It's a very difficult challenge. I admire the work you did and my comments are only cosmetic. The plugin is great :)

I tried using 1 font size to solve my issue, but the text disappear when I zoom in. This is size 2 as you suggested with longer name...

[agerardin]

On the contrary, this is an important issue. I believe this is as much a question of aesthetic as an usability issue. The main rationale for the new style is to try to improve navigation of large graphs. It is clear that it has not achieve that yet!

My way to think about the problem is the following: Imagine you are presented with a knowledge graph unknown to you. How much information can you grok at a glance?

On the previous version, I believe it was hard to get a synthetic view of a graph and see the salient features. You saw the network, but had no useful labels to figure out what the graph was about. I did like the uncluttered, galaxy-like view, but the information was missing. I agree this version is still too cluttered, but on the bright side, some topics naturally emerge from it at a distance.

Two options I can think of to solve this:

• I can add a couple options to allow reverting back to the old look (mainly preventing scaling)
• Try to address the current problem : at low zoom level : emphasize highly connected nodes much more so major topics appears (usually tags, could be notebooks as well). Then zooming in progressively will have the less important nodes show up. This was my intend, but it may need to be a little more clever than current implementation to achieve good results.

I have a question concerning the selection issue you mentioned. Are you saying that when nothing is selected the nodes/labels are too dark or that after you have selected some nodes, it becomes hard to navigate the graph?

Do you mind reopening this issue so people can provide feedback/read on this topic if they want to? If you prefer I can also create a brand new one.

[GabrielMPhi]

This is very true. The earlier version was nice to look at, but not a lot of information was possible to see at a glance. Plus, the nodes often coagulated in a big spot. Now, it's much better distributed and theme emerge with the tags. If you take the last image I shared, you can see themes emerging.

Concerning the solution to the problem, I do like your second proposition. Indeed, looking from afar, main topics (tags and notebooks and all) could appear and more detailed version could appear when you zoom.

Could it be that bigger nodes appear more clearly with its text and then you zoom and other nodes appear more salient?

Concerning me questions, I was just expressing that I like the feature of clicking and higlithing the node. It's great. But I think that the normal theme is a bit too dark. It does help the contrast of when you click, but just a level or to more contrast in the normal vue could help... maybe. Or maybe only make bigger nodes a bit brighter?

Again, it's all just a small comment on an already great plugin

[agerardin]

This is very true. The earlier version was nice to look at, but not a lot of information was possible to see at a glance. Plus, the nodes often coagulated in a big spot. Now, it's much better distributed and theme emerge with the tags. If you take the last image I shared, you can see themes emerging.

Concerning the coagulating nodes, I think it is mostly a change in the default forces applied to generate the layout.

Concerning the solution to the problem, I do like your second proposition. Indeed, looking from afar, main topics (tags and notebooks and all) could appear and more detailed version could appear when you zoom.

Could it be that bigger nodes appear more clearly with its text and then you zoom and other nodes appear more salient?

Yes!

Concerning me questions, I was just expressing that I like the feature of clicking and higlithing the node. It's great. But I think that the normal theme is a bit too dark. It does help the contrast of when you click, but just a level or to more contrast in the normal vue could help... maybe. Or maybe only make bigger nodes a bit brighter?

Again, it's all just a small comment on an already great plugin

Sounds reasonable. I will experiment a bit and see what I can come up with. Thanks again for providing feedback. Screenshots also really help!

[shbach]

I also found the previous design vastly more usable.

Right now when zoomed out I simply can't see anything: I want to be able to see the overall structure and nodes with more links/potential points of interest.

Setting FONT_SIZE to 2 helps but now I have the issue that node labels, particularly longer ones, are unreadable. Coupled with the fact that the node labels disappear instead of getting larger when zooming in, it is impossible for me to figure out what some of the nodes are from the graph:

Another issue is that the labels for more highly connected nodes are spaced very far away from the nodes which makes it difficult to know what the node is. The node labels should always be next to the node itself.

Lastly, in the previous version when switching between notes the graph would zoom in on the selected note. With the new version the zoom level is preserved, and given the aforementioned issues it's impossible for me to find the note:

• at low zoom level : emphasize highly connected nodes much more so major topics appears (usually tags, could be notebooks as well). Then zooming in progressively will have the less important nodes show up. This was my intend, but it may need to be a little more clever than current implementation to achieve good results.

This sounds like what I would want.

[chihuahua-na]

Where can I find v1.1?