Extension:Graph

MediaWiki extensions manual

Graph Release status: stable
Implementation	Tag , ContentHandler
Description	Data-driven graphs
Author(s)	Yuri Astrakhan (Yurik talk), Dan Andreescu, Frédéric Bolduc
License	MIT License
Download	Download extension Git [?]: Download Git master browse repository (GitHub) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review
Parameters $wgGraphDefaultVegaVer $wgGraphImgServiceUrl $wgGraphAllowedDomains
Hooks used ParserAfterParse ParserFirstCallInit
Translate the Graph extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Check usage and version matrix.
Issues	Open tasks · Report a bug

The Graph extension allows a <graph> tag to describe data visualizations such as bar charts, pie charts, timelines, and histograms (demo) in a JSON format that renders a Vega-based graph.

General info

Graph extension allows powerful Vega based graphs to be added to the wiki pages. Graphs can be both static and interactive.

The easiest way to add a graph is to use a ready-made template such as {{Graph:Chart}}. These templates hide all Vega complexities. Power users can use the Graph Sandbox to develop graphs. Graph sandbox allows wiki template syntax in addition to JSON.

Useful links

• Vega 2 documentation - restored Vega 2 documentation pages.
• Guide - General recommendations on how to use graphs in Wiki.
• Interactive Tutorial - step by step instructions how to build a complex interactive graph from scratch
• Demo page - for many samples and usage tricks
• TechTalk Video - a WMF tech talk discussing the Graph extension, including a great demo of the Lyra editor (also installed on labs).
• You may also be interested in some of the Vega future capabilities (Keynote by Jeffrey Heer).
• Vega for devs - best place of all Vega resources
• Migrating to Vega 2.0
• Video introduction into interactive Vega

Installation

• If using Vagrant , install with vagrant roles enable graph --provision

Manual installation

• Requires JsonConfig extension
• Download and place the file(s) in a directory called Graph in your extensions/ folder.
• Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php:

  wfLoadExtension( 'Graph' );
  

•  Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

Additional config setup

If you are looking to replicate a production environment like en.wiki you will need to complete the following steps:

Roles (only if you decided to use Vagrant)

• Enable graphs role
• Enable scribunto role
• Enable imagemap role

Templates and Lua Modules

• Copy Module:Graph locally
• Copy Module:Graph/doc locally
• Copy Template:Nowrap locally
• Copy Module:Chart locally
• Copy Module:Chart/Default_colors locally.
• Copy File:Circle_frame.svg locally

Charts examples

See Demo page for many samples and usage tricks.

User defined fallback

When using client side rendering, it is possible to use Wikimedia Commons to provide a static fallback image to noscript users. This is a temporary solution until a new service is put in place to provide server side rendering to replace the soon to be decomissioned Graphoid service.

The user must first upload the static graph to Wikimedia Commons.

Fallback images have two variables fallback and fallbackWidth.

fallback relates to a Wikimedia Commons filename.

fallbackWidth is the fallback images width in pixels.

These variables are pass through the graph in the following way:

<graph fallback="Graph test seddon.png" fallbackWidth=450>

Where lua modules are used such as Module:Graph then these variables can be provided via the tag function. If Template:Graph:Chart were adapted, it would look like this:

{{safesubst:#tag:graph|{{safesubst:#invoke:Graph|chartWrapper}} | fallback = {{{fallback|''}}} |  fallbackWidth= {{{fallbackWidth|''}}} }}

It would then be utilised in a template in the following manner:

{{Graph:Chart|width=400|height=100|xAxisTitle=X|yAxisTitle=Y
 |type=rect|x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9|fallback=Graph test seddon.png|fallbackWidth=450}}

If a fallbackWidth isn't provided but an image is defined then the extension will derive the width from the provided graph width. The reason for this is there is frequently a difference in the rendered image width and the actual image width.

{{Graph:Chart|width=400|height=100|xAxisTitle=X|yAxisTitle=Y
 |type=rect|x=1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8|y=10,12,6,14,2,10,7,9|fallback=Graph test seddon.png}}

External data

HTTP(S) protocol cannot be used to get data for the graph. Instead, use one of the custom wiki protocols like wikiraw:, wikiapi:, and others.

Graphoid service and Graph extension use GraphAllowedDomains setting to control how these protocols are resolved: Note that because queries rely on the structure of wikibase items, they may suddenly stop working if the underlying data is edited and changes, as it may yield incomplete, empty or invalid data that can't be used to create a graph. In these cases the graph will end up empty (see phab:T168601).

$wgGraphAllowedDomains = [
    # http + https keys lists all of the domains allowed for the external data access.
    # Any domain listed here automatically permits all subdomains as well.
    # Custom protocols like 'wikiraw' use it to determine which protocol to use.
    # This way wikiraw://en.wikipedia.org/Page will be an api request to https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&titles=Page&...
    'https' => [ 'wikipedia.org', 'wikimedia.org', ... ],
    'http' => [ 'wmflabs.org', ... ],
    
    # list of domains allowed for the wikirawupload: protocol access.
    # Exact match only, no subdomains.
    'wikirawupload' => [ 'upload.wikimedia.org' ],
    
    # same as wikirawupload but for Wikidata Sparql queries
    'wikidatasparql' => [ 'query.wikidata.org' ],
];

Known bugs & limitations

• Graph extension bugs
• Graphoid service bugs
• Fails to implement ISO 8601 timescales so only Gregorian calendars can be used in timelines
• Image upscaling on most browsers can be blurry by default. Set the appropriate image-rendering property to solve.

Internals

When parsing, the Graph extension expands all template parameters/expressions, and stores the complete graph definitions in the graph_specs page property, using graph hashes for IDs. This means you can easily locate a wiki's graphs with either Special:PageWithProps or the action API.

The graph extension adds HTML to the page where graphs should go, a <div> containing an <img> tag. Sample:

<div class="mw-wiki-graph-container">
  <img class="mw-wiki-graph-img"
    src="/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Extension%3AGraph%2FDemo/1686336/d243aa924db2f82926e0f317217fcce591fe8cd4.png" />
</div>

The <img> tag's href attribute points to the #Graphoid service, which provides a static image of the graph.

If the Graph extension is configured for interactivity, and if the client browser has JavaScript enabled and is not a legacy browser to which ResourceLoader does not ship JavaScript, then the client browser renders graphs on the fly. The Graph extension adds an ext.graph ResourceLoader JavaScript module to the page that includes the Vega library, and puts the JSON of graph definitions into a JavaScript mediaWiki.config variable named wgGraphSpecs. Once the client has loaded this module, the Vega JavaScript library populates each <div> with an HTML canvas and draws the graph in it, replacing the static image. As of November 2015, Wikimedia wikis only enable this interactive rendering for edit preview.

You can configure the Graph extension to always use just the <img> tag, and not add the Vega libraries or graph definition JSON. This mode will not work during editing, since page_props do not get updated until after the save. Once saved, the Graphoid service will be able to access the new graph definition via the action API.

Security features

<graph> can be configured to disallow referencing untrusted data sources (e.g. Wikimedia only allows data from the Wikimedia sites). It can also send extra headers whenever accessing external data, e.g. Treat-as-Untrusted header that MediaWiki uses to prevent CSRF attacks.

License

Vega library is distributed under a modified BSD license acceptable under for us to use.

“	This appears to be a copy of the BSD license, with some minor (acceptable) modifications. It's not a problem for us to use it, although ideally they would not make changes like this to the license. It's better if people do not make these changes to their license, to avoid confusion (like this) about whether the license is safe for open-source use.	”
—Stephen LaPorte

Configuration

wgGraphIsTrusted

If false (default), passes Treat-as-Untrusted:1 header with all graph data requests

wgGraphImgServiceUrl

A format string to form a backend service request URL for the <img> tag. For example:

$wgGraphImgServiceUrl = "//graphoid.wikimedia.org/%1\$s/v1/png/%2\$s/%3\$s/%4\$s.png";

Would produce this URL:

//graphoid.wikimedia.org/mediawiki.org/v1/png/Extension:Graph/0/be66c7016b9de3188ef6a585950f10dc83239837.png
/{domain}/v1/png/{title}/{revid}/{hash}.png

Parameters will be supplied in this order: 1=server, 2=title, 3=revid, 4=graph-hash-id. All parameters will be escaped with rawurlencode(). If the value is false (default), no <noscript> urls will be generated

Other variables

wgGraphUrlBlacklist variable has been removed in 787d64a11 (7 Dec 2015).

wgGraphDataDomains has been removed in e0813f85a (28 Jan 2016). Use a wgGraphAllowedDomains instead.

wgGraphUserServiceAlways variable has been removed in b735f63ff4b (30 Sep 2015).

Enabling Graph namespace

To store graph definitions as standalone pages in their own namespace, configure JsonConfig .

// See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:JsonConfig
$wgJsonConfigModels['graph.jsonconfig'] = 'graph\Content';
$wgJsonConfigs['graph.jsonconfig'] = array(
	'namespace' => <PICK-A-NS-NUMBER>,
	'nsName' => 'Graph',
	'isLocal' => true,
);

Graphoid service

Warning:

WMF is no longer maintaining Graphoid and Graphoid will be undeployed from Wikimedia wikis in the near future.

This section should reference/sync-up with wikitech:Graphoid

Graphoid (git repo) is a node.js service that converts a graph definition into a static PNG image using the same Vega library code that runs in advanced browsers. The reason Graphoid was initially developed was to provide a static image so we wouldn't have to bundle Vega and d3 resource loader modules with every page response. See phab:T211881 for more details. The service is available on the Wikimedia cluster at https://www.mediawiki.org/api/rest_v1/#/Page%20content/get_page_graph_png__title___revision___graph_id_.

You can install it yourself:

$ sudo apt-get install libcairo2-dev libjpeg8-dev libpango1.0-dev libgif-dev build-essential g++
$ git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/services/graphoid
$ cd graphoid
$ npm install
$ npm start

(note: this package is not being maintained (phab:T211881, and installation may fail, see phab:T196001 , phab:T239100. npm i --build-from-source may help.)

The service URLs contain the domain of the page (for example mediawiki.org), service version (v1), the title of the page with the graph (PageTitle), revision ID of the page (12345, but could be 0 for current), and a hash ID of the graph itself (also used in HTML page to identify graph definition), for example:

http://localhost:6927/mediawiki.org/v1/PageTitle/12345/a64b022a8fa5b7fc5e40a2c95cd0a114b2ae1174.png (deprecated url)

https://www.mediawiki.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Extension%3AGraph/3420825/72edc224f0a10b343c1e84f63dbfc97cac9bc957.png

You configure the Graph extension to use the Graphoid service in LocalSettings.php with a line like

$wgGraphImgServiceUrl = "//localhost:6927/%1\$s/v1/%2\$s/%3\$s/%4\$s.png"; //deprecated path, older versions only
$wgGraphImgServiceUrl = "//graphoid.wikimedia.org/%1\$s/v1/png/%2\$s/%3\$s/%4\$s.png"; //deprecated path, older versions only

Configure graphoid services

Graph extension workflow

You can further configure the service via its config file.

VisualEditor module

Since summer 2015, the Graph extension also comes with a module (ext.graph.VisualEditor) which enables graph editing within VisualEditor.

This module was a result of a Google Summer of Code 2015 project. See phab:T89287 for more details.

This module allows users to see graphs within VisualEditor, as opposed to alien extension nodes. Furthermore, users can open up a dialog to edit a graph's type, data and padding. The UI also offers a way to edit a graph's raw JSON specification within VE without having to switch to the classic wikitext editor, in case more advanced users want to tweak settings not supported by the UI.

This first step serves as a stepping stone for many possibilities with graph editing within VisualEditor, and there are a lot of ways in which the module can be improved and expanded.

Troubleshooting broken graphs

Errors with graphs will be logged in the developer console.

Error: Bad constructor arguments (phab:T277906)

To fix: Replace filepath:Earthmap1000x500compac.jpg with filepath:Earthmap1000x500.jpg

Example.

TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'datum.firstYear.value')

To fix: Make sure you have not set default as null

Example.

See also

• Extension:GraphViz — for displaying graphs of sets of vertices connected by edges (i.e. not charts, like this extension)
• Plotly — The open source JavaScript graphing library (with 3d charting capabilities)
• D3 — Data-Driven Documents