G.V() 3.6.26 is out and brings massive changes to our software. For the first time since we’ve released G.V(), we are now expanding our support to new graph database query languages, starting with openCypher for Amazon Neptune & PuppyGraph. This new version is the first of a series of releases that will expand the reach of our graph database client beyond the Apache TinkerPop ecosystem.
We’ll also cover some recent 3.x release improvements that were not covered in previous announcements.
A quick recap of the 3.x releases
G.V() is changing rapidly – to support that evolution, we’ve undertaken substantial behind the scene work which was released over the Summer as part of our 3.0 update. You currently know our software to be a desktop-only executable. We will maintain this deployment model, but also introduce a new Docker version in the near future. Such has been the purpose of the 3.0 release.
That’s not all that’s changed however, so here’s a quick fire round of improvements we’ve added:
Improved application performance and reduced memory footprint
Improved query editor look and feel, and autocomplete engine accuracy
Updated JSON output format to be more inline with various database provider output formats
The Azure Cosmos DB JSON Output now matches the output returned by the database itself for better consistency
Cypher support for Amazon Neptune & PuppyGraph
Cypher is one of the most popular graph query languages out there. It’s a declarative query language initially developed by Neo4j that shares strong similarities with SQL, arguably the best known database query language of all. Cypher has branched off to an open-source implementation called openCypher which many graph database providers have adopted either as their primary language or to complement their main language.
We’ve set out to bring openCypher support to G.V(), giving users more flexibility in how they can query their database. Today, we offer this support for Amazon Neptune & PuppyGraph which both offer an openCypher API concurrent to their Gremlin API.
Simply put, you can now write and run Cypher queries on G.V() just the same way we’ve supported it so far for the Gremlin query language, without any additional configuration required. Download the latest version of G.V() and you’re good to go!
Our query editor now offers the option to choose between Cypher and Gremlin for databases that support it. You can seamlessly switch between both languages, access the same advanced auto completion features we offer for Gremlin, and visualize your query results the same way you’ve been able to so far for Gremlin.
Running a Cypher query on Amazon Neptune using G.V(), with autocomplete and advanced results visualization
Graph view improvements
We’ve added some quality of life features and improvements to our graph view, to provide a better, more versatile experience to users.
Centering of the camera to the layout applied on the graph is now more accurate, and ensures that the optimal zoom level is applied no matter the size of the graph. The animations applied to reposition nodes after layout are smoother, and the graph can be rotated 90 degrees in any direction to give you more flexibility on how you want it displayed. We’ve also introduced a new horizontal tree layout which is best suited to hierarchical data structures.
Running layouts and positioning the graph now runs much smoother
Query Editor changes
Aside from the ability to switch between Cypher and Gremlin query languages whilst writing queries, you can now also specify a query timeout to ensure that your query does not exceed a threshold of your choice.
We’ve also updated the look and feel of the UI to provide the same useful information in a more compact format, creating more space on screen to write complex queries.
What’s next for G.V()?
With G.V() 3.x, we’re embarking on the next stage of growth for our software. We will continue to expand support further to new graph database providers, starting with Neo4j’s AuraDB, Desktop and self-hosted editions. Once that support is released, we will be turning our attention to ISO GQL (Graph Query Language) with the aim to provide the first fully featured graph database client for GQL.
Other Cypher-enabled graph database providers will be progressively added to the roster of available technologies in G.V(), such as Memgraph. If there’s a graph database provider you’re specifically interested in seeing in G.V() (or if you work on a database you’d like to see us support!) give us a holler at support@gdotv.com. Our ultimate goal is for G.V() to be the only graph database client you’ll ever need.
We’re not just looking to expand compatibility to other databases – a crucial goal as part of the 3.x release was to make G.V() deployable not just as a desktop executable, but also as a fully fledged web application using Docker. We will initially launch the web version of our software on AWS Marketplace in the coming months so that you and your team can collaborate directly on a single deployment of our software. Stay tuned for more news early next year.
Hello hello! I’m excited to announce the latest release of G.V(), 2.16.27, packed full of user experience/quality of life improvements for the software as well as some extra goodies.
Free trials are now up to a month!
So far, to allow users to trial G.V() Pro, we’ve been offering a 2 weeks trial which should give most people enough time to play with all of its features. We’ve also been offering users the option to get in touch with us directly to get an extension of typically 2 more weeks. We recognise that not everyone wants to have to ask and more importantly that sometimes during the trial things can get hectic and take the focus away from using our software.
For that reason, we’ve introduced a trial extension feature directly within G.V() – once your trial expires, you’ll be offered to extend it immediately in just one click. The best part is, you don’t even have to ask us anymore! If you aren’t on 2.16.27 yet, simply update G.V() and you’ll be offered the option to get your extensions as shown below:
We hope that this will take the stress of making the best of those 2 weeks out and give you more flexibility as well. You can also still sign up for a new trial every 3 months.
The Query Editor is getting a makeover
From its first release, G.V() used a popular text editor, CodeMirror, to provide its query editing features and various output displays (JSON, Console, Query Profile, etc). We recognise that a familiar user interface is essential to give users a better experience and so for that reason we’ve migrated all CodeMirror components to Monaco, Visual Studio Code’s own text editor. Aside from the sharp look and feel of VSCode, this change brings a whole host of new features and improvements:
All default VSCode keyboard shortcuts are now available to use (indent, comment, find & replace, etc)
Considerable performance improvements particularly on large JSON displays
Minimaps are now available on large text contents
JSON formatting and folding of objects/lists is more intuitive to use
With Monaco’s extensive highlighting and widget features, we can now insert more useful content into the text editor
To demonstrate these new capabilities, we’ve got you another animation, as usual!
Everything else
Aside from the above, we’ve also got a handful of small bug fixes and minor user experience improvements. One notable change is that we’ve now renamed the Graph (Advanced) View to just Graph View, and renamed the older graph view to just Graph (Legacy). As we continue to bring improvements and feature parity to our SigmaJS graph visualisation, the CytoscapeJS version (the legacy view) will eventually be fully replaced.
For a full list of changes, see the changelog below:
What else is cooking?
As previously mentioned we’ve got some big features in the works, and we’re looking at an announcement in July. Meanwhile, we’ll soon be introducing a new advanced custom authentication options allowing to you to generate credentials and authentication headers based on an external process. This is too support scenarios where your database access is protected in more complex ways, for instance with Google Cloud Identity-Aware proxy.
Today’s update announcement is actually a batch of the last two feature releases (2.5.9 and 2.10.17) which happened just a couple weeks apart of each other. The focus of both of these updates is mostly on the Large Graph View and its performance.
New Graph Filtering and Navigation options
As part of release 2.5.9, two new major features have been added to the Large Graph View to allow more advanced filtering and navigation options: the graph filtering view and the vertex neighbors highlighting tool.
Graph Filtering View
The purpose of this view is simple: to provide new filtering capabilities built upon the data available in your graph. To do so, we now leverage element property values to display filtering and element selection options. It also allows quickly determining the spread of values for a given property on a vertex or edge.
As always a picture is worth a thousand words and we’ve made a quick animation highlighting these new capabilities which you can check out below:
The filtering view includes a few nifty features to assist with navigation, such as the ability to sort filters by name or size and a search bar so you can quickly get to the property value you’re looking for. It’s a really powerful tool that also allows for some quick insights on your graph, so make sure to try it out!
Vertex Neighbors Highlighting
We’ve reworked and improved the neighbor navigation and highlighting tools available on G.V() to provide a more advanced and insightful experience. Previously, G.V() allowed incrementally selecting neighbors for a vertex but the UI was somewhat hidden and unclear. To remediate this, we’ve added a new tab under the Vertex Details tab as shown below:
This new capability calculates the maximum number of consecutive hops via a neighbor’s edges and their consecutive vertices and edges to reach the farthest (and closest) points of the graph from the currently selected vertex.
Each calculated hop then contains a report of which vertices can be found at that hop as well as how much of the graph they cover.
We’ve got another animation to illustrate this functionality further, shown below:
The example above is pretty insightful as it pertains to airports, countries and routes between them. It allows viewing how many hops (in this case airplane route) are required to travel from one country or airport to any airport, country or continent shown on the graph. Note that in this example for brevity only a subset of all airports and routes are showing but this should give you a good idea of where this tool can be effective in delivering visual insights from your graph.
Advanced Corporate Proxy Configuration Options
Some of our users, maybe yourself, need to deploy and use G.V() within a fairly airtight environment. Sometimes this would require the use of a corporate proxy of which your graph databases may be hidden behind. This new release of G.V() finally brings full proxy support to allow connecting to any graph database behind a proxy, through a set of new options that can easily be configured and detailed in our documentation.
Large Graph View Performance and UX improvements
The Large Graph View is a core component of G.V() that we’ve been continuously investing in since we first introduced it in 2022. It is powered by the SigmaJS graph visualization library (and it’s sister graph library, Graphology). Earlier this year, the SigmaJS team has announced the release of its long awaited v3, which we have proudly supported and sponsored. If you’re interested in building graph visualization then you simply must check SigmaJS/Graphology – it’s free and open-source!
This new v3 SigmaJS version is of course relevant to this post as we’ve now officially upgraded G.V() to use it, and it brings significant performance improvements as well as new rendering capabilities to provide a more versatile visual experience to the framework. The goal of these improvements is to allow SigmaJS (and therefore G.V()) to render more elements, faster, and increase the speed of processing graph updates for re-renders (e.g. when switching stylesheets in G.V()).
We’ve taken the opportunity with upgrading to SigmaJS v3 to also review the rendering of element labels to give them a crisper look and feel. Most important however is that with this new release, SigmaJS finally supports the drawing of curved edges. This may seem like a small change but it is extremely useful for graphs that contain many bidirectional relationships, as these were previously difficult to tell apart visually in G.V(), as shown in the comparison below:
A graph display with curved edgesThe same display without curved edges
With this new capability it’s now much easier to understand relationships in complex, highly interconnected graphs.
This is our first big project with the SigmaJS team and we’re hoping to bring more in the future, so stay tuned!
What’s next for G.V()?
We’re working on a few big projects behind the scenes but it’s too early yet for us to share more details. In the meantime you can expect to continue seeing regular updates to our product with a focus on user experience and performance. If you have any thoughts of your own on what you’d like to see next in G.V(), make sure to let us know by emailing us at support@gdotv.com. Our goal is to provide the best graph database tooling possible and there’s no better way to achieve this than by listening to what our users want and need from our product – your feedback is what drives our roadmap.
Hey! We’re starting a new tradition of releasing blog posts to quickly show case new features of G.V() whenever a feature update is released. To kick this off, let’s have a look at what’s in store for this update!
Improved Query Editor User Experience
G.V()’s query editor is an essential part of the software and one that hasn’t seen too much change since it was first released. So we thought now’s a good time for a fresh coat of paint and a little rework of the user experience.
First of all, we’ve redesigned all the popups to match the overall style of the application better.
We’ve also reworked the sidebar popup to be permanent but easily toggled – it now contains some useful shortcuts such as a view of your data model as you type your query and it will continue to display context- aware information as you type your query (e.g. Gremlin documentation, data model documentation, etc). Moreover, when highlighting a specific step in your query, this assistant feature will also display the corresponding documentation.
We’ve also added a never seen before (in the Apache TinkerPop world!) syntax highlighting feature that will really improve readability, especially on complex queries. Check it out:
This is a first phase of improvements that will soon be followed by more – our focus will be on additional highlighting and query writing assistance scenarios (e.g. project/select key highlights, labels and property keys documentation display on highlight, etc).
Apache TinkerPop 3.7.0 Official Support and G.V() Playground upgrade
G.V() now officially supports Apache TinkerPop 3.7.0! Thanks to the addition of Properties on Elements in this new version, all users using Gremlin Server 3.7.0 will benefit from considerable performance improvements when fetching large amounts of vertices and/or edges through G.V().
We’ve also upgraded our own in-memory graph, G.V() Playground, to 3.7.0 meaning that it will also benefit from the same performance improvements.
We’ve added GoLang as a translation target to G.V(), as has been introduced in this new release of Apache TinkerPop.
There are further performance improvements that were made to the result serialization aspects of G.V() which all Apache TinkerPop graph systems and versions will benefit from in this new release.
New Amazon Neptune Audit Logs View
There’s a new Amazon Neptune log view in G.V() to complement the previously released Slow Query Logs view. Much like the former, it is designed to allow users to quickly profile and debug Gremlin queries running on their Amazon Neptune database. We’ve also added some additional controls on both tables to select the columns to display.
The addition of this Audit Log View makes it easier than ever to identify queries running against your database and re-run them if necessary. Once again, GIF demo time!
Everything else…
There’s a few bug fixes and other minor improvements in this release, for reference, see the full release notes below:
G.V() is a continuously evolving software – we have monthly feature releases and monthly maintenance releases running in tandem to ensure both that new features regularly hit the shelves and any defects/bugs are promptly squashed. We’ll post about every feature release to give you a better idea of what’s changing (and why you should update!).
If you have already, make sure to also subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with all things G.V(). See you next month!
