G.V() Gremlin IDE - A look back and to the future

[gdotv (Arthur)]

Hi everyone,

I'm Arthur Bigeard, the developer behind G.V(), a Gremlin IDE for the various Apache TinkerPop™ variants. If you haven't tried it yet, you can download and use it for free at https://gdotv.com. It is available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

G.V() has now been in a free open beta for over 6 months and so I wanted to put together a little post to summarize the progress made with the solution and discuss future plans.

First of all, thanks to everyone who has participated in the beta so far and a special thanks to those that provided feedback throughout - it has been tremendously helpful in improving the product and building out new functionality.
The open beta feels like a massive success for the product's development and was recently extended another 3 months as a result.

G.V() has evolved quite a bit since its initial release November last year and admittedly at the time quite a few things were missing or just not behaving. I encourage those that tried earlier versions and were displeased with G.V() to try out the latest version, 0.9.18, which was just recently released.

Now for what's changed since the initial release:

- Support for Azure Cosmos DB, JanusGraph, DataStax Enterprise Graph and ArcadeDB
- Automatic detection of Apache TinkerPop database variant and connection requirements
- Improved Amazon Neptune support
- Improved query editor suggestions with highlighting functionality and smart detection of labels to produce suggestion
- "What You See Is What You Get" functionality to create/update/remove graph elements without writing queries
- Graph Data Explorer to search, filter and navigate your graph with a simple filter based UI
- Improved graph results visualization customisation to allow using images and displaying element labels based on property values
- Graph view legend
- Data Model loading for JanusGraph using the Schema Management API
- Improved support for large graph handling with data model loading
- Ability to save queries and organise them into folders
- Support for meta-properties and different property cardinality options
- Tons and tons of UX/performance/stability improvements, as well as other features

Also worth noting:
- G.V() is now signed using an Extended Validation Code Signing Certificate which means it is no longer flagged by the Windows "SmartScreen" system.
- The G.V() EULA has been recently updated to clear some confusion around commercial use, essentially affirming that G.V() is 100% allowing commercial use of the software with the exception of hosting and reselling the software executable itself.


Regarding the future of G.V() and what to expect for the next 6-12 months. First of all, I aim to maintain the monthly(-ish) release cadence that has been in place so far to continue delivering improvements/fixes and new features.
In terms of new features/improvements there are 3 areas I would like to focus on:
- Team working functionality to allow multiple users to share various G.V() settings (queries, folders, stylesheets for graphs)
- Data Modelling and generation of data model scripts for variants that support graph schemas (e.g. JanusGraph and DataStax Enterprise Graph)
- Query editing and debugging facilities - this is a large area but overall would span such things as further improved suggestions for the editor, query data flow visualisation, support for gremlin recipes/parameterised queries and query history support

The above areas correspond in part to the feedback that has been provided so far and in other to a general vision I have for the software and what it should do based on other solutions available out there. Feedback however remains the main deciding factor for development priorities.
I'm very open to discussions in general as to what can be put in G.V() to make it better and more useful.

Regarding the open beta itself, it is set to continue at least through to October and likely until early 2023. There will always be a free version of G.V() available particularly for open source Apache TinkerPop implementations though perhaps some future functionality will only be available as a paid option.
In the short term, I'm planning to introduce an optional paid license in the coming weeks that will allow users to show financial support. All current G.V() functionality will remain free even once that's in place, at least for as long as the open beta is set to last.

I'm excited to continue improving G.V() with your support and feedback. You can always reach out to me at any of the following places for a discussion, some feedback (or a bug report :D):
- by email at sup...@gdotv.com
- over at the official Apache TinkerPop™ Discord Server (https://discord.com/channels/981533699378135051/982243637868003429/987286336396492840) either by tagging @gdotvee on the channel or by direct message
- over at the official JanusGraph Discord Server which was recently launched (https://discord.com/channels/981533699378135051/982243637868003429/987286590378364990) by tagging @gdotv on the channel or again by direct message
- on Twitter @gdotv_ltd (https://twitter.com/gdotv_ltd) where I post regular updates and previews of G.V().

Thanks for reading and I hope to hear your thoughts/feedback on G.V() and my plans for it, either here or in any of the above channels!

Cheers,

Arthur

[Stark Arya]

Great job!

As we known, TigerGraph, Neo4j, Nebula all have their own IDE，and they  both have some advantages。

For Alibaba GDB，We have also open sourced our IDE: https://github.com/aliyun/alibabacloud-gdb-console half a year ago。

My experience is that gremlin is hard to use especially for new users， so we need provide more template like: k-hop path; common  neighbor,...  For user just need to fulfill some vertex and labels they could easily get what they want。

Also provide a web interface may be more friendly for people to get started