Vazaar Project Blog

Finally, I got the way to implement distutils into Vazaar. It lacks support for i18n/gettext but it is in the way. I’ve released a new tarball. You can launch it as developer inside your home with the command ./launch

But if you prefer a wide-system install, you must use the following command:

sudo python2.5 setup.py install

You can find an entry under Applications -> Office -> Vazaar

python 2.6 also works but it throws warnings.

Please, note that you can NOT combine different versions of python because database sqlite formats differs each from other.

Hi everybody,

a new version of vazaar have been released for testing purposes. Although it’s stable you can consider it as proof of concept.

This version is a redesign of the previous one. While the old one was developed in C, the new one is being developed with Python. Also, I’ve been studying a new approach. Instead of work with tags and tagging operations, the new version is powered by the semantic web vision, ideas and tools.

I’d like to highlight RDFLib, a RDF library containing an RDF triple store and RDF/XML parser/serializer which deals with the logic of the application.

Go to the Download page to get it. Check the screenshot page as well.

Development is carried out at Lauchpad.

Now that I understand how a semantic model works I have more and better ideas to implement.

Next version will be released, hopefully, before this year ends.

Enjoy it.

After some headaches I’ve found how to write dynamic SPARQL queries by passing parameters. For example, to query graph about resources collected last hour this code could be a first approach:

#!/usr/bin/env python
# Dynamic query (example code)

from datetime import datetime
import rdflib
from namespaces import XSD

def last_day():
    """ get date """
    now = datetime.now()
    date = now - timedelta(hours=24)

    return date

def get_date_filtered_query():
    """ build query """
    period = last_day()
    mydate = Literal(period, datatype=URIRef(XSD))

    query = """
        PREFIX rdf: 
        PREFIX nie: 
        PREFIX nfo: 
        PREFIX nao: 
        PREFIX pimo: 
        PREFIX xsd: 
        SELECT ?id
        WHERE
        {
            ?id rdf:type ?type .
            ?id nao:created ?date .
            FILTER (?type != pimo:Collection) .
            FILTER (xsd:dateTime(?date) >= xsd:dateTime("%s")) .
        }
        ORDER BY DESC(?date)
        """ % mydate

    return query

# query graph
query = get_date_filtered_query()
result = graph.query(query)

for id in result.selected:
    print id

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Checking others parts of the Vazaar GUI, I’ve realized that I can query remote ontologies and vocabularies with a simple SPARQL sentence. In the screenshot you can see how I query for the comments of all NAO entities.

Just for the record, it would be nice to save user queries and integrate them within Vazaar. And, of course, to export result data to a file (eg.: in a CSV file) ready to import to a any spreadsheet program like OpenOffice Calc.

After a long weekend coding and trying new design ideas finally I think I got a nice GUI. At least for the StartHere module:

There are still too much glitches in the GUI but I’m trying to fix them as I go. But for now, I feel satisfied. Queries against the model are working as expected.

After clicking in any stats button you get a nice visual for your resources. In next commits, you will be able of choosing one the two kinds of views: ListViews and IconViews. By default, the IconView is preferred.

More ideas are coming like content filtering, properties tagcloud, timeline widget, etc…

At this moment, you can only add new resources by copy&paste operations. An improved dialog for this operation is in the way. Resources can be selected for be deleted. If the selected resource is a collection, all resources which belong to this collection will be deleted. There is no actions popup menu yet but it’s planned.

I’m thinking if a Trash resource is worth. NEPOMUK brings especial classes for this cuestion. I need check twice these. Anyway, it wouldn’t be very difficult.

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