1136485 - Please install the GraphViz extension on wiki.mozilla.org

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Websites :: wiki.mozilla.org, defect)

Description

[Adam Roach [:abr]]

As part of the architecture design work that I've been doing on Loop (Hello), I've had the need to include both state diagrams (see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Loop/Architecture/MVP#Call_Setup_States) and message flow diagrams (see https://wiki.mozilla.org/Loop/Architecture#User_Calls_Other_User).

In these cases, I've been using tools locally on my machine to generate the diagrams and then uploading them as PNGs to the wiki. This has two major drawbacks: (1) it substantially increases the friction in creating these diagrams and keeping them up to date; and (2) it prevents other people from editing the diagrams in the future, since they don't have the source file used to create them.

Installing the GraphViz extension (http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:GraphViz) would allow specifying these diagrams in-line, in a way that reduces the work necessary to create, as well as keeping them editable for easy updates (by both me and other parties).

Comment 1

[Christie Koehler [:ckoehler]]

The package graphviz is a requirement for this extension. There are Ubuntu and RHEL/CentOS packages, I believe.

JD or C, when you have a moment, will you check the generic cluster and let us know whether or not this package is available or perhaps already installed? 

dot, circo, fdp, neato, twopi and the needed binaries.

Comment 2

[Christie Koehler [:ckoehler]]

I've this up and running in the Sandbox:
http://wiki-sandbox.allizom.org/MozillaWiki:Testing/Testcases/Extensions/GraphViz

In order for this to work, we'll have to change how $wgUploadDirectory is set because the extension does not like relative paths (details in bug 1136973).

See the changes here: 
https://github.com/christi3k/wiki.mozilla.org/commit/e0042c821aca6f74fb3fa8acd13a35935df0bf8a

(FYI Not all the paths have to be refactored for this to work, so I'm not blocking this on bug 1136973).

Comment 3

[C. Liang [:cyliang]]

The graphiviz package is available, but not installed (2.26.0-7)  It provides the binaries you listed above (dot, circo, etc.)

Comment 4

[Jason Crowe [:jd]]

Package added to puppet. Forced run on dev server, all seems okay. Stage and prod will update in their time.

Comment 5

[Christie Koehler [:ckoehler]]

This extension is now up and running on dev. Here's an example:
https://wiki-dev.allizom.org/User:GPHemsley/Testing/Graphviz

We could use some help testing to ensure this extension will work well in production: https://wiki-dev.allizom.org/

(Unless your account is new, you should be able to log in to the dev wiki with your usual MozillaWiki credentials.)

Comment 6

[Adam Roach [:abr]]

Awesome. For some reason, when I tried to put a sample up on my talk page on that site, I get "Unable to create a directory in the file system."

See https://wiki-dev.allizom.org/User_talk:AdamRoach

Comment 7

[Adam Roach [:abr]]

(In reply to Adam Roach [:abr] from comment #6)
> Awesome. For some reason, when I tried to put a sample up on my talk page on
> that site, I get "Unable to create a directory in the file system."

Retrying a bit later, the extension appears to be working just fine now. Thanks!

Comment 8

[Gordon P. Hemsley [:GPHemsley]]

Is it possible to configure the default image format?

Graphs are generally textual in nature, but the default image format of PNG is entirely inaccessible. We should output SVG unless explicitly requested otherwise.

Comment 9

[Christie Koehler [:ckoehler]]

Pushed to stage and production today.