An easier, better, tastier (!) BeerGraphGuide in the Neo4j Browser!

I recently wrote two blogposts about a fancy new way to create "Guides" right in the Neo4j Browser - a system that we at Neo have used ourselves to create learning experiences for the Neo4j Graph Database - but that we are now also extending and making available to our community and Enterprise customers. The first post showed you what the result was, and the second post showed you how easy it was to create such a guide. And of course, since this is still all very new and under development by the inimitable Michael Hunger, it is still evolving at warp speed.

So that's why I am adding a third post to this series, based on the lastest version of Michael's github repo. In this version, he has added a much more convenient way to serve the HTML page that we use as the basis for the Browser Guide: we essentially don't need a CORS-enabled webserver anymore - we can just use the webserver that is already baked into Neo4j and which the Browser already uses. Michael did this by developing an unmanaged extension that picks up the HTML file from a local directory, and then serves it when you call the :play command in the browser. So how does it work? Let's show you.

Installing the Unmanaged Extension

You will find the extension on the github repo under the "guide-extension" directory. Michael has added some detailed installation instructions if you would be able and willing to compile the software yourself - but he has also added a compiled version link for Neo4j Enterprise 2.3.2. You can download the .jar file, and then just add this to the right directory of your Neo4j Enterprise 2.3.2 installation: the "plugins" subdirectory.

The BeerGraphGuide in the Neo4j Browser: the making of!

So last week I showed off this little tidbit that I created with the help of Michael and Oskar - a BeerGraphGuide right into the already fabulous Neo4j Browser.

So obviously I need to explain HOW I created that - and that's what I will do in this blogpost.

Creating a Browser Guide - easy!

Starting point of the exercise is Michael's github repo with all the source material. Download the zip file with all sources and unzip it on your local machine. The instructions online are kind of limited, but in principle the sequence of what we need to do is EASY:

1. we need to create an Asciidoc file (identical to what we use for our GraphGists) that describes the Neo4j Browser Guide.
2. we need to convert that Asciidoc file to an HTML file with a very simple shell script (see below).
3. we then need to figure out a way to LOAD that HTML file into the Neo4j browser. in a :play pane (similar to the built in guides that we already have)

So let's get cracking with that.

The Neo4j Browser has a BeerGraphGuide

I have written quite a bit about Beer on this blog - and that's a good thing. I have also done a bunch of graphgists about it, and I am sure I will keep on doing that for a while to come. But recently, I have learnt about some new functionality in the already awesome Neo4j Browser that allows you to extend it with custom GUIDES - the learning tool that is built straight into the platform. And so I had to take it for a spin, and get my Belgian Beergraph to become part and parcel of the Browser - of course.

Here's a little video I made capturing how this would look like.

I am planning to come back to this in the next few weeks, and explain the details of how this works. But for now, I think this opens up a world of possibilities on how people will be sharing and working on graphs with Neo4j and its Browser.

Cheers

Rik