inportb WordMap
[HOME] Word Association Graph
To get started, enter your word:
(Javascript is REQUIRED! This script may be slightly resource intensive due to the nature of calculations it performs.)
This has been done before twice (at least): Visual Thesaurus and Kyle Scholz's alternative. I wanted to build a free alternative to Visual Thesaurus while supporting more browsers than Kyle's alternative (which, like many AJAX applications, do not work very well in Konqueror). So, with Kyle's jsviz library, I whipped up my own version. This application grabs words off Princeton's WordNet and displays them as a graph.
There is a bolded word in the center of the screen. This is the word you searched for. If you want another word, you click on the central word. It should pop a prompt() and ask you for the word. Enter the word of your choice.
If the search is successful, the central word will be surrounded by the parts of speech it is used in. For each definition of the word, there will be a separate edge (or connection) in the graph. You see this as a group of abbreviations surrounding the central word: n (noun), v (verb), adj (adjective), adv (adverb), and so on. When you hover your mouse pointer over the part of speech abbreviation, it should pop a tooltip showing the definition and usage examples if available.
Each definition is surrounded by a cluster of other words related to the central word through the definition. If a definition does not have any other words connected to it, that means that there is no other word (in WordNet) that is related to the central word through this definition. Clicking on one of these words takes you to the page for the particular word.
The graph is fluid, which means that it moves around. If you can't see something because something is covering it, you can drag nodes around. To drag a part of speech around, simply hold the n or v or whatever and pull on it. To drag a related word, hold its waypoint (immediately to the left of the word) and pull on it. This is because if you click the word itself, you navigate to the word's page.
And that's about it so far. I hope you guys have lots of fun operating this tool. I know I found it useful while writing and otherwise looking for ideas. It's still being developed, but as I've plenty of work, development will be slow. I will most likely keep it textual, because it uses enough processing power as it is, but I'm open to feedback!
Source: Princeton WordNet