New Approach

As of last week, I’ve completed my first label repositioning plugin. It successfully repositions the labels of the network so that the networks are more readable. However, it is currently tied with the Force-Directed layout algorithm in Cytoscape. Also, this current approach creates too many additional temporary edges, which are later removed. So after meeting with my mentors last Friday, we’ve decided to take a new approach:

• Make a copy of the current Force-Directed layout class (this will also copy the Tunables over so that constants that the algorithm needs can still be set by the users)
• Convert each label to a LayoutNode as well
• The list of LayoutNodes that will now be used will contain both network nodes and labels
• Modify the algorithm so that it only needs to look at the x and y coordinates of various LayoutNodes

So this is what I will be working on for the next little while. :)

Here is an example of how networks look after the current label plugin is applied:

Before:

After: