vsm-box
Intro
vsm-box is a web-component for entering or showing a VSM-sentence.
A VSM-sentence is a computer-understandable, natural-looking statement, where each term is linked to an ID, and terms are organized with VSM-connectors.
VSM (Visual Syntax Method) is an intuitive method to translate any knowledge, no matter its type or complexity, into an elegant form that is understandable by both humans and computers. - A full description of this general-purpose method for structuring information into a computable form, is available on scicura.org/vsm.
A web-component is something that can be shown in a web page by simply
inserting an HTML-tag, like a <button>, <input>, or here a <vsm-box>.
For web-developers who embed a vsm-box in a web-app, there are lots of customization features to support the needs of various user groups. For end-users who capture structured information, a vsm-box is an elegant and powerful tool; and even more so when they can fill out VSM-templates.
See:
- a concise intro on vsmjs.github.io, on how to use a vsm-box in your web-app;
- a larger introduction on this poster;
- a live vsm-box to interact with;
- many explained VSM examples (using an earlier vsm-box prototype);
- the examples below.
Intro examples
This section shows:
- a vsm-box animated example
(what you see is: 1. entering two terms, 2. checking one term's definition (by mousehovering), 3. adding a connector that creates an unintended meaning ('chicken with fork') (+ see that connectors are automatically reordered for optimal layout), 4. removing it, 5. adding the second connector correctly) :
- several vsm-box examples (screenshots + information) :
Documentation
See the Documentation for full technical details on:
- VSM-sentence/term/connector data-model (and examples),
- VsmBox props (i.e. html-attributes),
- VsmBox emitted events,
- user interaction,
- customized content (for term labels, term popups, and autocomplete panel items),
- and more.
Build
This project's configuration (webpack + npm + Vue + testing + linting) is as
described in
github.com/stcruy/building-a-reusable-vue-web-component.
This makes that vsm-box is built, or can be used as:
1) a standalone web-component, 2) a slim web-component,
and 3) a Vue component.
The latest version's built files are available at unpkg:
- vsm-box.standalone.min.js (standalone; use it like here);
- vsm-box.min.js (slim, needs Vue etc. as external dependencies; use it like here).
Contributing
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests.
Created by
- Steven Vercruysse - Main developer, VSM creator, project leader - stcruy
- Martin Kuiper - Design feedback, VSM project guidance - makuintnu
- John Zobolas - Design suggestions - bblodfon
- Vasundra Touré - Design suggestions - vtoure
License
This project is licensed under the AGPL license - see LICENSE.md.
The AGPL license protects your right to freely use the vsm-box and other vsmjs modules. But if you modify the source code, the goal is that you have to contribute those modifications back to the community.
Note* however that it is NOT required that applications be published
if, for entering and/or showing VSM-based information,
they use only unchanged, not-augmented vsmjs-modules.
The copyleft applies only to the vsm-box and other vsmjs modules.
Your application, even though it talks to vsm-box, is a
separate program and "work".
Why AGPL3
With VSM, we aim for unification of life science's efforts towards digital transformation of all its research findings. We want to promote community-building, and move forward with everyone together broadening the application set.
Because the vsm-box software directly reflects the core design of VSM, as a shareable semantic-data / knowledge format, we believe that modifications or enhancements to it must be made public as well. Otherwise a private actor could easily use an "embrace, extend, extinguish" approach to privatize an evolving technology that was originally meant to transform our scientific knowledge into a more open digital form.
We are inspired by the copyleft licensing that contributed to the success of Linux-based systems, for the same reason. We may revise this policy, if along the way we would learn that a most permissive license would give more benefit to society.
*(We think)
(That is our interpretation / intention with AGPL, like MongoDB does.
If you know better how to achieve this goal, let us know.)
