New Alyx user: dummy data

[plodocus]

Dear Alyx devs,

I'm trying to figure out if Alyx would be useful for our lab.

I was able to run the django server and get local access via the web browser but I'm not sure if this web UI looks like what it is supposed to. This is what it looks like for me:

I added a little data via the browser but it seems a little bothersome to build something that can showcase Alyx's capabilities. Would it maybe be possible that you provide some dummy data or even a public dummy website for interested users?

Best wishes,
Daniel

[rossant]

Have you clicked on the link at to get to the admin interface? This is the main UI of alyx at the moment

[plodocus]

OK, I see. So normal users aren't supposed to see this UI? Do you normally add data via the other toolboxes (e.g. Rigbox) and not via the browser?

From SfN I vaguely remember someone working for DataJoint who ran a local Alyx server and showed some behavioural plot in the web browser. Is it possible to plot something (e.g. a weight history) using the Alyx UI or am I mixing this up with DataJoint?

[rossant]

This UI is not meant to be used by normal users indeed, the admin interface is the main UI. Otherwise, alyx provides a REST API and clients like rigbox can connect to it.
Some admin pages do show some plots (like weight history).
DataJoint is indeed a separate project and features a web interface where you can look at behavioural plots for instance. This is not the scope of alyx which is mostly a mouse colony management system.

[plodocus]

OK. What do you think about providing dummy data so that it would be easy to do some testing with DataJoint?

[rossant]

Yes that would be a good idea!
In the meantime, you should know that there is a dummy and anonymized dataset in the repo (https://github.com/cortex-lab/alyx/tree/master/data) that is mostly used for automated testing. It's probably not very useful to human users as it's completely anonymized...