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Getting Started

Overview

This Python library is dedicated to providing resources for Vega-Altair, with the aim of enhancing the creation of improved and more accessible graphs. The development of this library involved a thorough exploration of both the Altair and Vega-Lite APIs.

For programmers, the library offers a suite of tools, including utilities for crafting new Vega-Altair themes, pre-built accessible themes, and description generators (Powered by BrailleR).

From a user perspective, the library facilitates limited customization of the graph, allowing choices such as color scheme selection, text size adjustment, and graph size modification. This is due to a function that creates an HTML using a chart as a parameter.

The overarching concept behind the library mirrors that of Vega-Altair, the majority of graph configurations and details are seamlessly managed by the library, affording users more time to focus on their data. It is important to note that the library does not modify any fundamental concepts, functions, or APIs of Vega-Altair; instead, it enriches the toolkit with additional resources.

This documentation serves as a reference for the resources available post-installation and aims to provide insights into creating accessible graphs.

Installation

The library and its dependencies can be easily installed, using:

pip install altair-easeviz

After installation, the next built-in themes should be ready to use:

  • accessible_theme
  • dark_accessible_theme
  • filler_pattern_theme
  • print_theme

You can enable them, using:

import altair as alt

alt.themes.enable("accessible_theme")

Requirements

The library was built for:

  • altair==5.* -
  • typing-extensions>=4.0, <5
  • jinja2==3.*
  • pyRserve>=1.0.*

Also, in order to use the function generate_description() is necessary to have R running in the background, and have installed the libraries:

  • BrailleR
  • ggplot2
  • Rserve

Getting Help

You can browse this documentation via the links in the top navigation panel or by viewing the API page. In addition to reading this documentation page, it can be helpful to also browse the source code of this project.

The code source is available in GitHub where you can report any bugs or request features.

Project Philosophy

This project has the same approach as the Vega-Altair library that is a simple user interface that focuses most of the resources on an experience ready to use after installation, but with the possibility to still be abel to create something more complex and complete.