Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) Changelog

What's new in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 3.0.4

Jul 30, 2021

SocNetV release for v3.0.4

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.8 (Jan 4, 2021)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.5 (Mar 8, 2019)

New feature: Prominence scores distribution in HTML reports and mini-chart in app sidebar
New feature: Search for and select multiple nodes by their numbers / labels / scores
You can now search for multiple nodes by their number, label or prominence
Score. Matched nodes are highlighted.
New feature: Lattice network generator
SocNetV can now create regular lattices of arbitrary dimensions.
You can define the lattice dimension d, and the length/size l of each dimension.
Also, you can define custom neighborhood size n, which is the distance within which
The neighbors on the lattice will be connected.
New feature: Edge dichotomization
In weighted networks with valued edges, the user can now ask SocNetV to
Dichotomize the edges according to some threshold. All edges with weight
Above that threshold will become binary. The result is a non-valued graph,
Which is displayed in a new relation.
New feature: Custom icons in nodes
You can now select and use any image (i.e. PNG, JPEG, SVG) as node icon.
Also, except the legacy node shapes (box, circle, diamond, etc), SocNetV
Offers many more built-in icons (person, computer, bug etc).
And you can select any image file from your filesysten to be used
As custom node icon in your network.
New feature: Export network to any image format
You can now export the network to any of the image formats
Supported by Qt
New feature: Much improved PDF exporting
You can now select orientation as well as quality and DPI.
New feature: Uniform UI theme
High quality theme, inspired from Material Design,
For uniform look'n'feel of SocNetV across all OSes.
New Control Panel toolbox menu: Network Auto Create
You can now automatically create a network with one click in the new toolbox
Menu. Random nets, famous data-sets and web crawler are supported.
Improved Web Crawler
The built-in web crawler runs faster and allows you to exclude/include
Social network links, parent and child links.
Support for network files where edge weights are (double)
SocNetV now understands (double) edge weights in Adjacency, GraphML, Pajek,
Edgelists, GML, etc. This means that edge weights in network files can be valid numerical characters
Along with the plus/minus sign, the characters g and e used in scientific notation,
And the decimal point. Fixed bug with non-integer edge weights while
Importing Adjacency.
Speed optimization and improved memory management.
Improved menu accessibility with hotkeys
Many bugs fixed

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.4 (Mar 1, 2018)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.3 (Jul 17, 2017)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.2 (Jun 15, 2017)

New feature:
Hierarchical Clustering Analysis (HCA)
SocNetV can now perform hierarchical agglomerative cluster analysis on a social network.
Supported methods: Single-linkage (minimum), Complete-linkage (maximum) and Average-linkg (UPGMA).
The Structural Equivalence matrix can be computed from the adjacency or the geodesic distances matrix using a user-selected distance metric such as Euclidean distance, Manhattan distance Jaccard distance etc.
The result of the HCA is the list of clusters per clustering level and a dendrogram of the clusters hierarchy in SVG format.
New feature: Eigenvector Centrality (EVC)
Yet another centrality metric is now supported: Eigenvector centrality.
The EVC score of an actor is defined as the ith element of the leading eigenvector of the adjacency matrix. The leading eigenvector is the one corresponding to the largest positive eigenvalue
This metric can also be used for embedding radial or level layout in the network.
New feature:
Pearson product moment correlation coefficients
SocNetV can now correlate actor profiles (ties or distances to other actors) and compute a correlation matrix of pair-wise PCC scores.
New feature: Actor Similarity matrix
SocNetV compares the pair-wise tie/distance profiles of actors and produces a similarity matrix.
The user can select one of the supported measures (Simple Matching, Jaccard, Hamming, Cosine similarity or Euclidean distance)
The algorithm can compare rows (outbound links), columns or both of the input matrix.
New feature:
Tie profile dissimilarities
SocNetV computes the pair-wise tie profile dissimilarities of the actors, using any of the supported "distance" metrics: Euclidean, Manhattan, Hamming, Jaccard, Chebyshev.
The algorithm uses the adjacency matrix as input.
It can compare rows (outbound links), columns (inbound links) or both.
New feature:
Maximal clique census
SocNetV uses the Bronâ€“Kerbosch algorithm to compute all maximal cliques in an undirected graph.
The Clique Census report has been revamped with lots of useful statistics.
New feature:
Symmetrize edges by examining Strong Ties
Given a network, the user can create a new relation with only strong ties (when both a->b and b->a exist).
The user has the option to create strong ties either from all relations or from current relation only
New feature:
Cocitation matrix
SocNetV computes and displays the cocitation matrix of the network.
The Cocitation matrix, C=A*A^T, is a NxN matrix where each element (i,j) is the number of actors that have outbound ties/links to both actors i and j.
New feature:
Cocitation network
SocNetV creates a new symmetric relation by connecting actors that are cocitated by others.
In the new relation, an edge will exist between actor i and actor j only if C(i,j) > 0, where C the Cocitation Matrix. Thus the actor pairs cited by more common neighbors will appear with a stronger tie between them than pairs those cited by fewer common neighbors.
New feature:
Filter (temporarily disable) unilateral (non-reciprocal) edges.
This feature enables the user to have a directed network symmetrized by focusing only on the strong, reciprocal ties.
New feature:
Multi-relational data read and write in GraphML
SocNetV now supports reading and writing .graphml files with multiple relations.
New feature:
GML format support
The application can load and parse GML formatted network data.
At the moment only graph, directed, node, edge, id and labels work
New feature:
Import multirelational directed networks from Pajek files
SocNetV can read Pajek files with multiple relations in *Arcs
New feature:
Support for EdgeLists with labels
SocNetV can now parse simple and valued EdgeList files where the nodes are referenced by their labels.
New feature:
HTML reports
SocNetV reports are now saved by default in HTML format.
This allows us to have a vastly improved formatting in all reports.
Centrality and Prestige reports allow the user to sort results by any column on-the-fly.
By default, HTML reports are opened in the system web browser.
New feature:
Plot adjacency matrix
SocNetV can now plot the adjacency matrix to a file using unicode chars
New feature:
Create basic subgraphs with one click
SocNetV can now create clique, star, cycle, and line subgraphs from given or selected vertices
Improved performance:
SocNetV can multiply matrices faster, by using a recursive Exponentiation by squaring or Fast Modulo multiplication algorithm.
All TextEditor reporting windows will be closed on app exit/init
GUI improvements:
Revamped Control Panel and more app icons in the toolbar
The left toolbox (Control Panel) interface was changed to provide a more organized one-click functionality.
The add/remove buttons for nodes and edges have been removed from the Control Panel.
They now appear as toolbar icons, along with icons for node finding and properties, edge filtering and application Settings.
The Analyze options in the Control Panel were re-organized in Matrix, Cohesion, Prominence,
Communities and Equivalence select popups.
In the Matrix popup list, the user can select which Matrix to compute and view, ie. Adjacency, Cocitation, Laplacian, etc.
The Cohesion popup list includes all basic graph-theory metrics: distances, walks, average distance, clustering coefficient etc.
The Equivalence popup lists all available Structural Equivalence algorithms in SocNetV: HCA, Similarities, Pearson Coefficients, and Tie Profile Dissimilarities.
Cosmetic changes:
Select Relation Combo box now editable. User can change the name of the current relation on the fly.
In case of errors during file importing, the applicaiton informs the user about the line in the file where the errors occurs.
Datasets:
New dataset: Petersen Graph
Transformed Krackhardt: High-tech managers and Zachary Karate club into multirelational datasets
Bugs resolved:
#1645504 Wrong distances in valued/weighted social networks
#1463087 zero appeal parameter not working in scale free nets
#1629997 Edges with floating point weights are not saved
#1632857 creating nodes randomly may position some of them out of canvas
#1634634 Wrong interpretation of edgedefault graph attribute value
#1636525 Edge labels are not saved in GraphML when the network is undirected
#1637890 Cannot read edgelist files where edges are declared by labels (include non-digit characters)
#1632874 Rubber band selection does not always work
#1633194 Edge arrows option does not exist in Settings
#1633225 Deselect All does not deselect last clicked node
#1622870 Fix large matrix formatting in txt exports
#1637326 Loading multirelational pajek files leaves the app in "not saved" mode
#1 Wrong Group Degree Centralization computation (https://github.com/socnetv/app/issues/1)
#2 Use GitHub as code hosting/repository service (https://github.com/socnetv/app/issues/2)
Important Notice #1: Project's new domain: http://socnetv.org
Important Notice #2: Project's code and files are now hosted in Github.

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.0 (Sep 23, 2016)

Major code overhaul for memory and performance optimization.
SocNetV 2.0 occupies less memory and executes most operations much faster than before.
Random network creation is faster and more reliable as many bugs have been fixed.
Network data loading from files has also been optimized for speed and efficiency.
New GUI layout
There are no more tabs on the left side of the application window. Instead, the new GUI offers two side panels along the main canvas. The left panel (called Control Panel) has most edit, analysis and visualization options to be selected with one click. The right panel (called Statistics Panel) shows basic information and statistics about the social network and the active node, such as network type (undirected or not), network density, node in-degree and out-degree and node clustering coefficient.
Furthermore, along the canvas there are two new sliders. The bottom horizontal slider controls rotation. Drag the slider left-right or use the buttons on the two corners to rotate the whole network counterclockwise or clockwise.
The vertical slider on the right side of the canvas controls zoom. Drag the slider up-down or use the buttons on the two corners to zoom in or out.
There is also a nice "reset zoom and rotation" button on the bottom right corner.
New feature: Settings dialog and functionality.
Up to v1.9, SocNetV did not offer any way to permanently save some of your preferences, i.e. node and edge colors. The new version brings that functionality with a powerfull and user-friendly Settings dialog. You can find it under Options menu in Windows/Linux and application menu in Mac). It can also be invoked using the keyboard shortcut CTRL+comma.
The dialog is composed of three tabs: General, Nodes, and Edges.
In the General tab, users can change and permanently save their options such as debugging messages printing, progress bars appearance, canvas color and background etc.
The Nodes tab has settings about the nodes (default color, size, shape), node numbers and node labels (toggling, color, font size and distance from the node).
Similarly, the Edges tab offers settings about the edges, their weights and labels.
Any change to the options in the Settings dialog is applied at once. Furthermore, once the user presses the OK button, all settings are saved in a file in the home directory and they will be used by default in all future sessions.
Note that some of these settings are also available as single options in the Edit and Options menus. But any change to them from the menus will be temporary and lost once you close the application.
New feature: Labels on edges.
Except their weight, edges can have labels choosed by the user. Just right-click on an edge, select "Change edge label" and enter a new label. The edge label visibility can be toggled temporarily from the Options -> Edges menu or permanently from the Settings dialog.
Edge labels are saved only in GraphML formatted files.
New feature: Directed Edges on different lines
The new version brings a long requested functionality: to depict directed edges between two vertices with different lines. In the past, any edge (directed and undirected) between two nodes was displayed as a single line, which did not help the user to see at once if that line is one undirected edge, one directed edge or two reciprocal directed edges between those nodes. Only small arrows on the two corners of the line were some indication if that edge was inbound, outbound or both.
This problem is solved in v2.0. All directed edges are displayed as separate lines on the canvas. Thus, if you add a tie from node A to node B and another tie from node B to node A, the program will show two different directed lines connecting nodes A and B.
The same is true if you load a directed social network.
If you want to create an undirected social network, or convert a directed network to undirected, enable the menu option Edit -> Edges -> Undirected edges.
All edges will become undirected. Then you can add more undirected edges between nodes as before.
The same logic applies on loading social networks from a file. If the file explicitly declares undirected Edges or undirected graph, the network is visualized with undirected edges, single lines with no arrows.
At the moment only GraphML and Pajek files are supported.
New feature: Keyboard shortcuts.
If you prefer using the keyboard to create and analyze your networks, the new version brings nice shortcuts to all basic functions. For instance, press CTRL+. to add a new node and CTRL+/ to add a new edge.
New feature: Delete multiple nodes at once.
Select any number of nodes (left-click on the canvas and drag to select all nodes in the rectangle rubber band). Then right-click on one of the selected nodes and select Remove nodes.
New feature: Add edges from multiple nodes at once.
You can select multiple nodes and add edges from all of them to another node at once.
The procedure is the same as deleting multiple nodes. Just select Add edge in the end...
New feature: Node edges highlight.
When you hover on a node, the program highlight (in red) all edges of that node.
New feature: Edge highlight on hover.
When you hover on an edge, this is highlighted (red color and increased width) to help you see the two nodes it connects.
New feature: Recent files
Version 2.0 brings a nice Recent Files submenu under the Network menu. Every time the user loads or saves a file a relevant entry is added under Recent Files. This allows us to have a list of the last five saved or opened files along with their paths, so that the user can re-open them with one-click. The Recent Files are saved between sessions.
New feature: Tooltip and What's This help everywhere.
Tooltips and What's This functionality have been added to most GUI elements.
Just hover on any button or control widget and a helpful tooltip will appear to explain what it does. You can also click on the ? button on the toolbar and then click on any menu entry, button, checkbox or widget to see a relevant explanation.
New doxygen source documentation
The SocNetV Manual is now opened directly from the website instead of being local.
If you prefer to have the manual offline, its source files can be found in the archive tarball or zip file. To create the complete HTML manual, use the doxygen command.
Windows 10 compatibility
SocNetV v2.0 Windows executable is compiled with the latest Qt version which supports Windows 10.

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.9 (Jul 16, 2015)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.8 (Jun 12, 2015)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.7 (Jun 12, 2015)

New feature - Group select and edit for nodes:
From this version nodes can be selected with mouse and edited in groups. Just select some nodes, and right click on a selected node or in the canvas, then select Node Properties. Also, there are now the familiar Select All (Ctrl+A) and Select None (Ctrl+Shift+A) shortcuts to select all nodes at once
New feature - Node properties dialog:
A new dialog (Node Properties) offers all the editing operations in one place. The user can change node label, size, value, color and shape. If multiple nodes are selected, the new properties are applied to all of them. In this case, the labels are automatically incremented (i.e. label1, label2, etc)
New feature - Preview network file:
Due to the different codepages used by the Windows, Linux and Mac, a network file saved i.e. in Windows containing non-Latin characters could not be loaded by SocNetV because the program always tried to read and write in the OS locale codepage. Furthermore, a bug in GraphML writing function meant that SocNetV always used UTF-8 as Document Encoding even when the file was not UTF-8. The solution offered from this version is a nice file previewer which by default appears when loading a file. With it, the user previews the file in many different encodings to find the correct one, namely the one where all characters appear as they should. By pressing OK, the file
is loaded and the network is displayed on the canvas. Linux and Mac users should always use UTF-8, except when they try to load files saved in Windows computers. Windows users should probably use Windows-1253, except when they want to load files saved in Mac/Linux or files containing
non-latin chars (i.e. Russian). Russian Windows users should probably use KOI8-R encoding
Change - UTF-8 default encoding for writing files:
From this version, SocNetV by default uses UTF-8 codec for all output textstreams, such as network files
Change - New keyboard shortcuts for nodes and links:
From this version, keyboard shortcuts are becoming key sequences in the form of Ctrl+X, Ctrl+Key. For instance, Ctrl+X followed by Ctrl+A (for adding
nodes) and Ctrl+L followed by Ctrl+A (for adding links).

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.6 (Jun 12, 2015)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.5 (Nov 24, 2014)

New feature: Prominence indices on valued networks:
A new SSSP-solver algorithm has been implemented (Dijkstra) which allows SocNetV to compute prominence indices on weighted networks. When the graph edges are weighted, the application asks the user if it should consider weights in computations.
Also, it asks the user if weights should be inverted or not. This question is crucial since edge weights can have different meanings. For instance they can denote cost or votes.
If they denote cost, then the geodesics should be those paths with minimum value. But, if the weights denote votes, then the geodesics could be those path with maximum value. In the latter case, the user should choose to invert weights so that Dijkstra compute the desired paths and distances.
New feature: Standardized Centrality and Prestige scores:
From this version all actor prominence indices report standardized scores (from 0.0 to 1.0) where applicable. If there is no known formula to compute such a standardized score for actors, then SocNetV computes a std score by dividing the original index score by the sum of index scores of all actors. For instance, this happens on PRP. Warning: If the original prominence index has range from 0 to 1 (i.e. EC and IRCC), SocNetV considers that as std and does not compute anything else.
Change: Prominence layouts are relative to highest score:
From now on, all (circular, level and nodal size) visualization layouts based on prominence scores are graphed relative to the highest score in the network, instead to the theoretical max (1.0). For instance in a circular layout, say the actor with the highest CC has score 0.8. That node will appear to the center of the circular layout. All other actors will appear on circles of radius relative to that highest score. I.e. an actor with score 0.4 will appear on a circle of radius 50% further from the screen center, while another actor with CC score 0.2 will appear on a circle of radius 75% further from the actor with the highest score.
New feature: Work without isolates, if you like:
The user can omit isolates and compute prominence indices for the resulting graph.
New feature: Graph connectedness:
SocNetV can report the network connectedness (whether it is a connected graph or digraph, unilateral etc). Also it can check whether isolates exist that can be removed so that the graph can become connected
New feature: CC drops isolates by default:
Up to v1.5, SocNetV did not compute CC scores if the network had isolate nodes, instead it urged the user to use IRCC. From this version, SocNetV checks if isolates exists and automatically drops them in order to compute CC scores.
Bugfixes:
Fix GDC calculation in weighted networks
Force-Directed algorithms produce poor layouts
Methods isOutLinked & setOutLinked do not consider relations
centralityInformation() should symmetrize adjacency matrix
click on an edge does not select the right edge
Group IC calculation yields incorrect results
wrong power centrality scores
vertices() should report only enabled vertices
pagerank prestige reports wrong scores
socnetv cannot build on non-x86-based architectures
remove SRS pdf and fix spelling errors in Code
SocNetV does not remember last directory used by user
Cannot change size and value of a node
New datasets:
Stephenson and Zelen (1989): Network of 40 AIDS patients
Stephenson and Zelen (1989): IC test dataset, 5 actors
Wasserman and Faust: star, circle and line graphs of 7 actors

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.4 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.3 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.2 (Nov 24, 2014)

Changed conceptualization of importance indices:
In general, all indices attempt to measure the visibility, the importance or the "Prominence" of each node. But from now on, following Wasserman & Faust and Knoke & Burt, we now distinguish two types of prominence: Centrality and Prestige.
Most Centrality indices were designed for undirected graphs (symmetric), where the relations are non-directional. They can also be calculated to directed relations and digraphs by focusing on "choices made" (or outLinks). For digraphs, where the relations are directional, we introduce a range of Prestige indices which focus on "choices received". These indices measure the nominations or ties to each node from all others (or inLinks).
Thus, Prestige indices can only be calculated on directed graphs, and measure the status, rank or popularity of each node.
According to the new conceptualization, the "Centralities" menu has been renamed to Centrality & Prestige. Centrality indices can be applied on both graphs and digraphs (measuring outLinks) while Prestige indices can be calculated only on digraphs and they measure inLinks.
New Prestige indices: Degree Prestige, Proximity Prestige and PageRank Prestige.
New "reachability" statistics: Walks (of given length), Total Walks Matrix (for any path length up to g-1), and Reachability Matrix
New Connectedness statistic: Checks whether the graph is connected, weakly connected (digraph) or disconnected.
New "distance" index: Eccentricity e, the maximum farness of the node from all others
Revamped GUI. Toolbox now has two tabs: Controls and Statistics. In Controls, all the essential features are available grouped in Edit (add or remove node/link), Analyse (distances, connectivity, clusterability, prominence indices) and Visualize (by prominence index or dynamic models) boxes.Also renamed Statistics menu to Analysis
New level visualization layouts: By IR Closeness Centrality, Stress Centrality, Eccentricity Centrality, Power Centrality, Information Centrality, Degree Prestige, Proximity Prestige and Pagerank Prestige
New circular visualization layout: By Proximity Prestige
New automagically recreated dataset: Wasserman_Faust_Countries_Trade_Data_Basic_Manufactured_Goods
SocNetV Manual: Updated documentation (added new indices and corrected wording) and added the Manual in Mac OS X .dmg package.
Fixed Bugs: Closeness Centrality in disconnected graphs/digraphs (it did not drop isolates), wrong classes for PC indices, Stress Centrality (wrong maxindex and circular layout in digraphs), not displaying of edge weights, Matrix::product errors, Eccentricity Centrality (wasn't reported as the inverse e), Geodesic Distance (it reported two nodes as connected even if their distance was 0)
Matrix Class: dded new operators in Matrix (+,*),
Dropped Graph Eccentricity as it is known as Eccentricity Centrality
fixed layout and signal/slots in datasetselectdialog.ui
fixed warnings during compile (i.e. unused fileContainsNodeColors etc in loadPajek()

Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) Changelog

What's new in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 3.0.4

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.8 (Jan 4, 2021)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.5 (Mar 8, 2019)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.4 (Mar 1, 2018)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.3 (Jul 17, 2017)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.2 (Jun 15, 2017)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 2.0 (Sep 23, 2016)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.9 (Jul 16, 2015)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.8 (Jun 12, 2015)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.7 (Jun 12, 2015)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.6 (Jun 12, 2015)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.5 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.4 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.3 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.2 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.1 (Nov 24, 2014)

New in Social Network Visualizer (SocNetV) 1.0 (Nov 24, 2014)