Announcing Raphtory v0.13.0: Interactive UI (Alpha), Python Ergonomics, and More!

We are thrilled to announce the release of Raphtory v0.13.0. This update is focused on improving the user experience with the first version of our interactive UI, while also delivering key ergonomic enhancements for our Python users.

This release is all about making your graph analysis more intuitive and your development workflow smoother. Let's dive into the key updates.

🚀 Headline Feature: Interactive Graph UI (Alpha)

The most exciting addition in this release is the alpha version of the Raphtory UI. You can now explore your graphs visually and interactively, directly in your browser.

The UI is designed to work with any graph hosted within the GraphServer and is enabled by default. Simply navigate to the base URL (/) of your GraphServer to start exploring. This provides a powerful new way to inspect your data, understand query results, and gain new insights without writing a single line of code.

As part of this change, the popular GraphQL playground has been moved to the /playground endpoint.

🐍 Enhanced Python Developer Experience

We've heard your feedback and have made several improvements to make working with Raphtory in Python more seamless and robust.

• Smarter Path Handling: We have replaced String with PathBuf for path inputs in Python. This resolves a number of platform-specific issues, especially for our users on Windows.
• Better Error Handling: The EmbeddingFunction now returns a Result object, allowing you to handle errors gracefully instead of causing a panic. Additionally, our Python doc stubs will now raise an error if a function returns an incorrect type, helping you catch bugs faster.

💥 Breaking Change: Simplified Direction Arguments

To make our Python API more intuitive, we have removed PyDirection.

You can now use simple strings (e.g., "incoming", "outgoing", "all") directly in function calls where you need to specify a direction. This makes your code cleaner and easier to read.

Other Notable Improvements

This release also includes important bug fixes and optimizations:

• Cleaner Dataframe Exports: The to_df() function for AlgorithmResult no longer includes internal Raphtory IDs in its output.
• Consistent Edge Exploding: We’ve fixed a bug to ensure that Graph.edges.explode().to_df() now behaves identically to Graph.edges.to_df(explode=True), preventing the duplication of historical data.

Get Started with v0.13.0 Today!

This release marks a significant step forward in making Raphtory more accessible and easier to use. The new UI opens up new avenues for exploration, and the Python enhancements streamline the development of your graph analytics projects.

For a complete list of all changes, check out the full release notes on GitHub.

We are excited to see what you build with these new tools. As always, your feedback is invaluable, so please share your thoughts with us on GitHub or in our community channels. Happy analyzing!