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JavaScript Installation and Module Structure

Perspective is designed for flexibility, allowing developers to pick and choose which modules they need. The main modules are:

  • @perspective-dev/client The data engine library, as both a browser ES6 and Node.js module. Provides a WebAssembly, WebWorker (browser) and Process (node.js) runtime.

  • @perspective-dev/viewer A user-configurable visualization widget, bundled as a Web Component. This module includes the core data engine module as a dependency.

<perspective-viewer> by itself only implements a trivial debug renderer, which prints the currently configured view() as a CSV. Plugin modules are packaged separately and must be imported individually.

  • @perspective-dev/viewer-datagrid A custom high-performance data-grid component based on HTML <table>.

  • @perspective-dev/viewer-charts A set of charting components base on WebGL.

When imported after @perspective-dev/viewer, the plugin modules will register themselves automatically, and the renderers they export will be available in the plugin dropdown in the <perspective-viewer> UI.

Browser

Perspective's WebAssembly data engine is available via NPM in the same package as its Node.js counterpart, @perspective-dev/client. The Perspective Viewer UI (which has no Node.js component) must be installed separately:

$ npm add @perspective-dev/client @perspective-dev/viewer

By itself, @perspective-dev/viewer does not provide any visualizations, only the UI framework. Perspective Plugins provide visualizations and must be installed separately. All Plugins are optional - but a <perspective-viewer> without Plugins would be rather boring!

$ npm add @perspective-dev/viewer-charts @perspective-dev/viewer-datagrid

Node.js

To use Perspective from a Node.js server, simply install via NPM.

$ npm add @perspective-dev/client