Expert mode for data users

The recent relaunch of OpenDataCommunities included an upgrade of the underlying Data platform to version 2 of Swirrl's PublishMyData. This release includes a raft of new features for data users, but one of the features I'm most excited about is "Expert mode".

Near the top of every page, in the data section of the site, is a toggle switch which lets users switch between two complimentary views of the data.

For quick and efficient browsing through the site, the default view shows only the most important information, in a friendly and legible format.

An alternative view, Expert Mode, provides much fuller details of the linked data, including resource identifiers, prefixes, data type and multilingual information (when available). When you’re developing applications, this mode should save you a good deal of time spent clicking forwards and backwards through the data.

Assuming you have cookies enabled in your browser, your preference will be remembered.

This feature was motivated by our desire to provide the richest, most useful data documentation possible for expert linked data users, whilst still offering a friendly data browsing experience for our less technical audience.

Full details on how to use the data in OpenDataCommunities can be found in the PublishMyData developer docs, and you can keep up with what's new via the changelog.

That's all for now, but I'll be writing about more new features for data users in the near future. Thanks for reading.

This post was written by Ric Roberts, CTO of our technology partner, Swirrl, who help develop, host and support the OpenDataCommunities service.