Semantic Web

Cocoa / Linked Data Viewer / Programming / Semantic Web — 2 Comments
20
Feb 10

Dev8D: call for help!

I’ve just put the following plea for help on the dev8D wiki:

I’m currently working on a small project that merges some of my current interests: SPARQL and developing Mac applications with Cocoa and Objective-C. The application … currently called Linked Data Viewer … allows you to query SPARQL endpoints. I’d love to speak to the following people about the project:

  • Developers or others who write SPARQL queries. What type of things would you find useful if you used this type of application? Syntax highlighting? Query history?
  • Any experts in User Interface design who could make suggestions on making an intuitive interface.
  • Any developers familiar with Cocoa. I’ve got some experience of writing native iPhone applications but very little Mac development experience.
  • Can you think of a better name for the application/project?

    • I’ll be at the event on on Friday and Saturday :-)

Cocoa / Linked Data Viewer / Programming / Semantic Web — No Comments
19
Feb 10

Release 0.4 – query with SELECT, CONSTRUCT, DESCRIBE and ASK

I’ve made 0.4 available as binary on GitHub. This version checks whether or not you are writing a SELECT, CONSTRUCT, DESCRIBE or ASK statement and updates the results format option list appropriately.

An example of a SELECT query:

SELECT statement

A CONSTRUCT statement:

CONSTRUCT statement

A DESCRIBE statement:

DESCRIBE statement

An ASK statement:

ASK statement

Binary download: LinkedDataViewer-0.4.dmg

Cocoa / Linked Data Viewer / Programming / Semantic Web — No Comments
12
Feb 10

Syntax Highlighting

I’m currently experimenting with providing some basic syntax highlighting for SPARQL queries. I’ve chosen an implementation based on examples given on the CocoaDev website. Its fairly rudimentary and just highlights SPARQL keywords in blue.

Screen Shot

I’m wondering if URIs should also have a different colour?

Ideally, the user should be able to set the colours in the application preferences.

Cocoa / Linked Data Viewer / Programming / Semantic Web — No Comments
9
Feb 10

10.5 Now Supported

I’ve updated the LinkedDataViewer application so that it will now run on Mac OS X 10.5 – this involved a minor code tweak and slightly changing some issues with the user interface. This version is downloadable as LinkedDataViewer-0.2.dmg.

Here is a screen shot of the tweaked user interface:

Screen shot

Cocoa / Linked Data Viewer / Programming / Semantic Web — No Comments
3
Feb 10

Merging Interests: SPARQL endpoints and Cocoa development

I thought I’d try and work on a small project that merges a couple of my current interests: the Semantic Web, SPARQL endpoints and developing Mac applications with Objective-C and Cocoa. Basically, a Mac desktop client that allows me to query SPARQL endpoints.

A SPARQL endpoint allows agents (human or otherwise) to query RDF data stores via the SPARQL language. For example, a number of endpoints have been made available with the recent launched data.gov.uk website.

The projects I’m involved with at work – within the Web Futures team in the Institute of Learning and Research Technology (ILRT), University of Bristol, are often focussed on Semantic Web technologies. We are looking to utilise SPARQL endpoints in our current projects – Research Revealed and Visualising China – and have started a spin-off project called Arnos that will develop a ‘system to present a number of sparql stores as one sparql endpoint, passing through user credentials to each of the stores’.

Each SPARQL endpoint usually comes with a simple form that allows you to send queries. However, from my point of view, it would be useful to have a desktop tool that allows me to store the location of different endpoints, query the endpoints, provide syntax highlighting, keep a history of queries etc.

Why Objective C and Cocoa? I’ve been doing web development for twelve or more years and I fancied doing something different. These days I tend to use Macs most of the time for development – both at home and work. Over the last eighteen months I’ve been playing with Cocoa and Cocoa Touch and have developed an application called Sensory Play for the iPhone.

So, I’m going to develop something I will use, give me a better understanding of dealing with endpoints and, hopefully, others will find it useful. :)

At the moment the project is called ‘LinkedDataViewer’ – yes, it needs a better name. The first release (0.1) allows you to add SPARQL endpoints and send SPARQL “SELECT” queries. Subsequent releases will provide support for CONSTRUCT and DESCRIBE queries etc. Here’s a screen shot of the 0.1 release:

Screen Shot

Some of the things I’d like to include are:

  • Support for all SPARQL query types and display data in an appropriate format
  • Support for analysing voiD descriptions – will this link to examples and documentation?
  • Keep a history of queries
  • Provide an option of a tabular view for SELECT queries

Please send me any useful suggestions or criticisms that will make a useful application. Most of the work will be done in my own time but its related to work I’m doing on the JISC-funded Research Revealed project. The source code is available via GitHub under a BSD-style license. Its pretty rough at the moment. :-)

Edit: The application will currently only run under 10.6. I’ll try, at some point, to support 10.5.