Explore
Desktop has two tools built in, Query and Explore. Both of them allow you to interact with your data directly from the UI in Desktop.
Explore, powered by Neo4j Bloom, is a graph exploration tool for visually interacting with graph data. It allows you to explore your data without using Cypher®, you can visualize existing connections and create new ones directly from the UI.
Explore is also built in to the Neo4j Aura console, and it exists as a standalone tool called Neo4j Bloom. The functionality is almost identical between the different deployments. This page is a brief introduction, for more information about this powerful tool, see Neo4j Bloom documentation.
In Desktop, you can find Explore in the sidebar, under Tools.
The UI consists of the Settings header, a search bar, the Scene, two vertical toolbars, a map, and a legend panel.
Settings header
The Settings header contains options for Perspectives and exports, as well as the settings drawer.
A Perspective is the context your explore with this tool. Instead of looking at all your data, you may be interested only in a part of it. Defining a Perspective is deciding which entities should comprise your explorations, and this is done in the Perspective drawer. See Bloom → Perspectives for detailed information about Perspectives.
You can export the data in the scene, either as CSV or as a screenshot. Additionally, you can share the scene with another user.
The Settings drawer contains settings for the Explore tool, such a s the query limit and search timeout.
Search bar
Most data explorations in Explore start in the search bar. This is where you describe what you are looking for and when you execute, you will see the reulsts visualized in the Scene. Once you have elements in your Scene, you can interact with them in various ways. See Bloom → Search bar to learn more about the search bar.
Scene
The Scene is the main workspace in Explore and this is where the graph based on your search is visualized. You can interact with the elements in your Scene in various ways, you can learn more about them, find hidden connections, edit them, and more. See Bloom → Scene interactions for more information.
Toolbars
The toolbars contain useful tools help you interact with the data in your Scene. Which tools are availble depends on whether you have a plugin installed in your instance or not. These are the available tools:
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Filtering - Allows you to filter out elements in the current Scene.
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Slicer - An interactive way to demonstrate differences in numerical values of properties via a timeline.
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Scenes - A way of saving and sharing the Scene you’re currently working on. This tool is only available with the Bloom plugin.
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Graph Data Science integration - Use an assortment of GDS algorithms on the data in your Scene. This tool is only available with the GDS plugin.
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Marquee tools - The bottom of the two toolbars contains the individual select, the box select, and the lasso select. You can use these to select elements in the Scene, both nodes and relationships.
Map
The minimap of the Scene allows you to pan the entirety of your Scene. It has controls to change what is visible on the Scene and can help you navigate around your graph if your visualization is large. See Bloom → Map
Legend panel
On he right side of the Scene is the legend panel. It shows a list of all categories and relationship types available in the current Perspective and a list of which style they are rendered in. You can use this to select elements in the Scene, but also to control how they are visualized. You can change the size, color, and which property to display on the element. Additionally, the legend panel also offers rule-based styling. See Bloom → Legend panel to learn more about the legend panel.