[jboss-dev] Re: Looking for ideas about possible improvements for a new APIviz release.

[Trustin Lee]

Hi Jesper,

On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 8:37 PM, Jesper Pedersen <jpederse at redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi Trustin.
>
> On Thursday 02 April 2009 01:45:04 Trustin Lee wrote:
>> I'm trying to improve APIviz ( http://code.google.com/p/apiviz/ ) in
>> visualizing the overall API structure so that a user can figure out
>> the overall relationship between classes and find a good place to dig
>> from.  It seems to do what it is supposed to do pretty well IMHO.
>> Here's an example Javadoc that used APIviz:
>>
>>   *
>> http://www.jboss.org/file-access/default/members/netty/freezone/api/3.0/ind
>>ex.html
>>
>> However, I believe there are a lot of room for improvement, especially
>> when it comes down to more complicated and large-scale project like
>> JBoss Messaging, Hibernate, JBossAS, etc.  For example, obviously, the
>> package dependency diagram doesn't help understanding the overall
>> relationship between packages because the generated diagram is too
>> large and scattered.
>>
>> So, let's assume that you are going to use APIviz for your project to
>> visualize the relationship between classes (or packages).  What would
>> you expect from it other than existing features?
>>
>
> fyi - I have added the initial "Graphical Dependency" report
> (https://jira.jboss.org/jira/browse/TTALE-19) to JBoss Tattletale.
>
> It currently shows the dependencies between your JAR files (it generates
> a .dot file) - but as we record package level dependencies also; a diagram
> with these is on my TODO also.
>
> I think it provides a good overview of a project - so adding package
> dependencies to APIviz would be a good idea IMHO - even if there is overlap
> with TTALE.

Actually, it already provides package dependency diagram.  I was
looking for a better way to represent package dependencies.  UML style
is boring and not very pretty.  :)

> I'll send you an image of my current workspace of JBJCA as an example
> off-list. Others can check out trunk/ and try it for them self ;)

Thanks!  It's pretty similar to what APIviz generates.  Perhaps
because they both use Graphviz?  I started to think there's a lot of
limitation with depending on Graphviz, but can't think of better
solution yet.  I don't want to spend my whole time in data
visualization algorithms, although it would be a lot of fun. :)

Cheers,

— Trustin Lee, http://gleamynode.net/