Copyright 2024 Crown Copyright
LD-Explorer is a prototype user interface built upon the Comunica graph querying framework that can be used for exploring linked data resources directly in the browser. We have found that this tool helps to better demonstrate the value and purpose of linked data to newcomers, and increases the speed at which experiments/ideas can be created and tested. We are open sourcing this software to fill what we believe is a software gap in the linked data linked data space and to hopefully encourage its growth into a valuable community tool.
LD Explorer runs entirely in the browser and is hosted at https://gchq.github.io/LD-Explorer/
The documentation for LD-Explorer exists entierly within the project wiki. This includes a getting started guide as well as a host of resources written to help users get to grips with various topics within topic of linked data. If you find this documentation lacking or confusing, then we consider this to be a bug: please raise an issue.
LD Explorer is a UI that allows users to explore and experiment with linked data directly within the web browser. Features include...
- Add data sources in many RDF formats, including JSON-LD, RDFa and Turtle.
- Add local data sources by pasting data directly into the browser.
- Use pre-build SPARQL queries to explore common data features such as classes and instances.
- Add remote data sources, including from SPARQL and Linked Data Fragments endpoints.
- Run federated SPARQL queries across all active data sources.
- Persist SPARQL
CONTRUCTqueries back into local data sources.
Note that there is no server component to LD Explorer - all interactions are read-only and happen in the browser, with any data source information persisting in memory only. Closing the browser or refreshing the page will reset LD Explorer back to an empty state.
If you want to run this project locally on your own machine, you will need a development environment which includes NPM/NodeJS - at least version 18.15 but ideally the latest Node LTS.
# Start the dev server
npm i
npm run dev
# Run the component tests (via Vitest)
npm run test:unit+component
# Run the end to end tests (via Playwright)
npm run test:e2e
# Build for production (and test it locally)
npm run build
npm run preview
See package.json for more information.
This software is open-source and contributions are welcome. See Contributing.md for details. In terms of required experience/knowledge, the main technologies used within this project are as follows.
Unless stated otherwise, the codebase is released under the Apache2 License. This covers both the codebase and any sample code in the documentation. The documentation/wiki is and available under the terms of the Open Government License v3.0.