Adding Data to Your Desktop or Page

Overview

Loading data into a davinci environment is a simple process. However, the process is slightly different depending on whether the environment is a davinci desktop or a davinci page.

• Desktop
  • Data from the hard drive, or from a URL can be loaded using the Data app.
  • Data can be scripted and added to the workspace through the Javascript app
• Page
  • Data from the hard drive, or from a URL can be loaded using the Data Toolbox.
  • Data can be scripted and added to the workspace through the scripting toolbox

Data Formats

Data can be encoded in various formats. When you add data to a page, the page needs to know the format of the data. Either you can provide this information, or if you do not tell the page what type of dtata it is, the page will use the extension (last letters of the file name after the period, such as "txt" or "json") to guess what the data format is.

• json: standard javascript object notation. Is usually the default.
• csv

For either format, you can typically specify whether the first column are column names are not. (see data app)

Embedded Data

Most data used in the davinci platform comes from a data feed specified by a URL. When the page or desktop is saved, the URL is saved, and not the actual data. When the page or desktop is then loaded again, the data is retrieved at the time of the loading. This means that if the dataset has changed since it was first added to the desktop or page, the newly loaded desktop or page will display a different dataset.

Users can bypass this behaviour by embedding the data into the desktop or page, rather than the URL. This means that the data is saved with the desktop or page when it is saved. This has two effects.

• The data does not change after it has been loaded
• The saved size of the desktop or page will include the size of the dataset. The davinci platform enforces limits on the size of a saved desktop or page, so large datasets may not be saveable to the cloud, and can only be saved to the users local hard drive.

Data that is loaded from the users hard drive is automatically embedded in the page. In addition, there are multiple tools that can convert a dataset loaded from a URL into an embedded dataset.

Users of the davinci platform are prohibited from sending a desktop or page with embedded data in it to other users, if the author does not have a license to the data embedded data that allows them to do so. For example, a user who loads a third party dataset into their desktop cannot send that data to another user if their license to that data bars them from doing so.

Video Demos