Networks are everywhere.  Social graph datasets are now widely available as a web delivered information resource.

The CurlGraph demonstration illustrates how Curl can be used to visualize the circle of friends available from your Facebook account.  Designed by Manuel Lima, the founder of VisualComplexity.com, it features a visual representation of the affinities among the logged in user's friends, together with additional details and links about selected individuals.

Log in using your Facebook credentials, and the CurlGraph application fetches your connections and associated properties using the Facebook developers API.  The display presents the subject, initially the logged in user, in the center of a ring of their friends, with arcs indicating their interrelationship, and the size of the symbol indicating number of mutual friends.  The information panes on the right show details from profile and recent photo albums of the subject. The images act as links to the originating Facebook page.

Hover over any node to highlight its connections, and select the node to focus on that subject in the center of the circle.  Use the section titles in the information panes to expand or collapse the details.  Use the controls on the command bar to adjust the display style.

The CurlGraph "circle of friends" presentation technique is not appropriate for a huge number of connections, so only the first 128 connections will be displayed.

The CurlGraph demonstration highlights several features from the forthcoming Curl V7 release:

• As a detached applet, it runs independently of the browser, in its own view, and is accessible from desktop and start menu.

• As an "occasionally connected computing" (OCC) applet, it is installed on the local machine, so as to be available for use when disconnected.  Like any web delivered application however, it is automatically updated whenever is is launched when connected.

• With Curl Version 7, an embedded SQLite database is available for local data storage.  In accordance with Facebook terms of service and privacy policy, stored data is accessible for a maximum of 24 hours before it is refreshed, to ensure that it remains current, especially regarding the privacy preferences of each user's data.

Installation Notes

The URL for installing the CurlGraph application directly from the Curl Developer Center is

Limitations in the infrastructure of this Web site prevent making the above link directly clickable, but if you paste the above URL into the address field of your browser, you can install the CurlGraph application on your system.  You will need to have the current Curl Version 7  RTE installed on your machine first.  (If you are running Firefox, you may see a popup window asking whether to run the Curl RTE File Loader.  After you authorize this operation, the installation window for the CurlGraph application will be displayed.)

This demo requires Curl Version 7.  If you're using earlier beta releases, you will get a "This library is not compatible with early beta releases" error.

Once you have the application installed and running, you can click the About button to read the operating instructions.

Facebook Login Notes

To use the CurlGraph application, you need to log in to your Facebook account, using the Facebook login page that is presented.  Once you have logged in, the Facebook login page will say "You may now close this window and return to the application.", and you can dismiss the login dialog.  The first time you use the CurlGraph application, after you've given Facebook your credentials, you will be asked to accept the application.  If the login was not successful, there will be a notification dialog to that effect, and you will remain logged out.

Source Code

If you want to see how the CurlGraph sample works, please download the attached zip file, which contains all the source files used to build the application. You can modify these source files to create your own variations.  In order to use the Facebook API, you will have to obtain your own application key, and substitute it for the placeholders in 'curlgraph.scurl'