Overview of Datablocks
Datablocks is a node based editor with several blocks for processing and visualizing data. It's based on the open source library React Flow.
More information about Datablocks can be found here: https://webkid.io/blog/datablocks-node-based-editor-data-processing-visualization/
Official website: https://datablocks.pro/
Setting up Datablocks
No installation is required for datablocks. All you need to do is to create a datablocks account by clicking on "Sign Up" as shown in the screenshot below. Once you have verified your email address, login to start using datablocks.
![notion image](https://www.notion.so/image/https%3A%2F%2Fs3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fsecure.notion-static.com%2Ff51b70fa-96f4-46c8-87e3-dbe4493e086f%2FUntitled.png%3FX-Amz-Algorithm%3DAWS4-HMAC-SHA256%26X-Amz-Content-Sha256%3DUNSIGNED-PAYLOAD%26X-Amz-Credential%3DAKIAT73L2G45EIPT3X45%252F20221203%252Fus-west-2%252Fs3%252Faws4_request%26X-Amz-Date%3D20221203T022313Z%26X-Amz-Expires%3D86400%26X-Amz-Signature%3Df80ebeaba8759f3edfc41743c148c0c2e93a2e76b4d7c56a61adcd2085cb7204%26X-Amz-SignedHeaders%3Dhost%26x-id%3DGetObject?table=block&id=6635871f-0dae-4c72-9ea4-ceea69250c43&cache=v2)
Datablocks Functionalities
There are a total of 5 blocks in Datablocks:
![notion image](https://www.notion.so/image/https%3A%2F%2Fs3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fsecure.notion-static.com%2Fd2968391-8295-4c39-8fb5-2ec5b2efaa55%2FUntitled.png%3FX-Amz-Algorithm%3DAWS4-HMAC-SHA256%26X-Amz-Content-Sha256%3DUNSIGNED-PAYLOAD%26X-Amz-Credential%3DAKIAT73L2G45EIPT3X45%252F20221203%252Fus-west-2%252Fs3%252Faws4_request%26X-Amz-Date%3D20221203T022313Z%26X-Amz-Expires%3D86400%26X-Amz-Signature%3D6de2114f49773f18f58c9de848a3d70843380f3a9e4f8537d0d12c8614edd2e9%26X-Amz-SignedHeaders%3Dhost%26x-id%3DGetObject?table=block&id=bb9d3b63-4566-479e-a545-e5de4ab2f04e&cache=v2)
The main purpose of Datablocks is to explore and visualize data that you input without any coding involved. Example of data visualization that I created in Datablocks using sample data:
![notion image](https://www.notion.so/image/https%3A%2F%2Fs3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fsecure.notion-static.com%2F85f090e5-f4c8-4636-8326-02f188825994%2FUntitled.png%3FX-Amz-Algorithm%3DAWS4-HMAC-SHA256%26X-Amz-Content-Sha256%3DUNSIGNED-PAYLOAD%26X-Amz-Credential%3DAKIAT73L2G45EIPT3X45%252F20221203%252Fus-west-2%252Fs3%252Faws4_request%26X-Amz-Date%3D20221203T022313Z%26X-Amz-Expires%3D86400%26X-Amz-Signature%3D28292fc8fbcdedec2bde9dddadd6b062412cb3718eb30d604029a9e0bef50990%26X-Amz-SignedHeaders%3Dhost%26x-id%3DGetObject?table=block&id=f63665a6-7ba1-4391-8f3d-9a2fe0c10ec0&cache=v2)
Flow of what I did: Input csv file → Filter out rows where ladder score is empty → Slice data to extract only the first 10 rows → Visualize data in barchart format
Total of 4 visualization formats to choose from:
![notion image](https://www.notion.so/image/https%3A%2F%2Fs3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com%2Fsecure.notion-static.com%2Fad9819c1-f632-4bd2-a906-34bc8c15e765%2FUntitled.png%3FX-Amz-Algorithm%3DAWS4-HMAC-SHA256%26X-Amz-Content-Sha256%3DUNSIGNED-PAYLOAD%26X-Amz-Credential%3DAKIAT73L2G45EIPT3X45%252F20221203%252Fus-west-2%252Fs3%252Faws4_request%26X-Amz-Date%3D20221203T022313Z%26X-Amz-Expires%3D86400%26X-Amz-Signature%3D609cdce494cf7e7e50ff3dd9bfef9e18631002e05a3309ada12053b0a239dfa2%26X-Amz-SignedHeaders%3Dhost%26x-id%3DGetObject?table=block&id=c7dd3c4c-890f-4029-a687-07c690803943&cache=v2)
Verdict
Rather than being a UI library/tool, Datablocks is more of a tool to process and visualize dataset. The processing/visualization options in Datablocks can be useful in areas like machine learning. Since Datablocks does not fit the needs of our frontend, I would not recommend Datablocks as the frontend library.