

Show HN: Turn JS visualizations into data products anyone can use - blockspring
https://www.blockspring.com/static_pages/launch

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Blahah
I think this is a cool idea, and the blog post made sense. This is a really
nice way of making visualisations reusable.

Judging by how others have missed the point though, you might want to work on
simplifying the pitch. How about starting the post with a simple diagram
explaining the flow like:

(code your visualisation) -> (add the BlockSpring API) -> (we generate a web
interface for your visualisation) -> (now anyone can use their data with your
visualisation)

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blockspring
Ha, mind me copying and pasting this until we have time to make a real
diagram?

It's funny how much better other people can be at explaining your own product.

And thanks for your feedback. If you have any advice on the API itself or any
other ideas, definitely let us know!

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Blahah
Feel free - all my comments are CC0 :)

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nl
It's a JS visualization library. I don't see any special "anyone can use it"
features. The demo sure seems to require the user to program in JS.

What am I missing?

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donpinkus
Hmm, so maybe our blogpost was unclear about that.

The BlockSpring library just lets people post their own work onto the
BlockSpring home page (www.blockspring.com).

Our library just lets you specify variables in your code that a user should be
able to input. Then when you push it to BlockSpring, we generate a forms and
other inputs so users can change these variables.

Truth is the BlockSpring library works just as well with non-visualizations.
We just figured it was more obvious to have people changing colors in a graph,
then adjusting some other input in a js script.

Does that make sense? We're still working on how to phrase this idea :)

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CaveTech
I'm on the same page as the parent comment. It literally looks like any other
Javascript graph framework.

There seems to be no additional tools added to make it intuitive for non
engineers. You want them to run web servers, save text documents and edit JSON
markup. Not a single one of my non engineering coworkers would ever make it
through this on their own. Further, if they make a mistake in the JSON syntax
they're going to be _ruined_. Absolutely no chance that they figure out what's
wrong. JSON syntax is pretty straightforward for engineers, but others aren't
going to understand the requirement of quotes, escaping, etc. The JSON markup
has a ton of parameters that aren't explained and aren't super obvious.

I understand what you're trying to provide by what you've just stated, but
this product definitely isn't that, unfortunately.

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Blahah
You've completely missed the point. The site is for developers who make
visualisations to be able to allow users to use the visualisations with their
own data. It requires you to first create the vis code, then use the
Blockspring API to wrap the data source, then the website auto-generates a
data upload form that populates the plot.

~~~
CaveTech
As someone unfamiliar with the product entirely, this point was very non-
obvious. Especially since nothing on the original page linked to the main ui.

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polskibus
It's a pity I can't edit sample data in-browser. It would be much easier to do
it in-browser for simple data sets - shorter feedback loop.

~~~
hackerews
Interesting - are you picturing editing sample data when you are previewing a
graph?

For example, on this page
[https://www.blockspring.com/graph_templates/60](https://www.blockspring.com/graph_templates/60)
and the preview modals, you could toy with the sample data so you get a better
understanding of how the graph works?

~~~
Blahah
I also think this would be nice - allowing in-place data editing and
copy/paste would be great. It lowers the barrier to trying out the product,
which will ultimately engage more people. I actually browsed away from the
plot page when I realised I had to upload data to use it (even if I could
download the sample data and re-upload it).

~~~
blockspring
That's great feedback! We will definitely implement this.

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polskibus
Have a look at datawrapper.de - as far as I remember, they use handsontable
for data table editing. Datawrapper visualisations are used by many
journalism-related sites around the world - seems to be a successful model.

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morgante
This looks very, very cool. It's basically exactly what I've been looking for
to make data journalism easier.

Do you offer some sort of API for using the web interface? I'd love to bake
BlockSpring right into our CMS. Feel free to contact me@morgante.net if you'd
be interested in discussing.

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hackerews
Thanks morgante!

The API for consuming graphs is something we're working on this week.

I'll definitely send you an email. We'd love to hear more about your use case.

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frenchhacker
Very interesting. I like the dashboard look 'n feel. Are you using a pre-
existing JS library for the dashboards or did you develop your own ?

~~~
blockspring
Hey thanks frenchhacker. We made some modifications to gridster for the
dashboards. It's a great library, check it out -
[http://gridster.net/](http://gridster.net/).

