Create a custom web page to query SPARQL endpoint, using VOS tools

Virtuoso Universal Server Web Application Services
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1

Hi,
I need to :

  1. Create a custom web page, in which an end user without knowledge of SPARQL, will fill some fields with values, press a button, and trigger an underlying SPARQL query that will use the values as filters in the where clause, and then return the results from the SPARQL endpoint, according to the form layout in the same web page.
  2. Configure a Virtuoso endpoint (HTTP, SOAP? …) in the Virtuoso Web Server, to allow the user, access to the page.

Is this possible with the tools provided by VOS?

If so, I will be grateful if you direct me to the related documentation, for each of the tasks.

Thanks a lot!

2

Hi Ricardo,

Our Faceted Browsing Engine provides an interface for achieving what you’ve outlined.

You install it as follows:

  1. Obtain the Virtuoso Application Distro (VAD) Package for the Virtuoso Faceted Browsing Engine
  2. Install the VAD via the Conductor under Admin → Packages menu, using the upload from filesystem option; if you haven’t installed the Conductor VAD you can proceed via the command-line or install said VAD

Post installation, simply search on text pattern “Virtuoso” via http://{host}:8890/fct.

You can progressively add more data to the underlying DB via the Linked Data Middleware (a/k/a “Sponger”) Module which is installed the via the Linked Data Middleware Cartridges VAD Package.

Let us know how you get on.

Related

3

Hi Kinsley,
Thank you very much for your answer.

I’m aware of the Faceted Browser, and I’ve used it; it is a great tool. And so is the Sponger.
They are great exploratory and data acquisition tools.

However I was looking for something a bit different.
The type of tool you would use when the end user says “I want a single page with this field here, and the other one there, a button to trigger X action on the retrieved data, and these other results displayed in a tabular form, side by side with the graphical representation of the subset (a nice graph image)”.
I think of it as a form designer or something alike, that gives you the power to indulge the final user with the looks he wants, and abstracts you from the mapping of the information to and from the triple store.

I hope this may clarify what I was looking for.
Perhaps this is something that is not among the tools offered by VOS, but maybe you might know of some external tool that might do the job and be compatible with VOS.

All the best!
Ricardo

4

The Faceted Browser does get you there by clicking on the “Generate SPARQL” link which places you in the SPARQL Editor with an option to use the default of tweak.

Alternatively, assuming you don’t want to code this using Virtuoso Server Pages (VSP), you can look at YASGUI etc…