Unable to Connect to Neo4j Database Instance

[Ifeanyi55]

I have cloned the github repository of the Needles StarterKit and installed the dependencies using npm i, and launched the application using npm run dev. This is what I see

However, I am unable to connect to Neo4j by clicking the "Connect to Neo4j" button. Nothing works when I do that, and I have a sandbox instance running. Where do I go from here, please?

[msenechal]

Hi @Ifeanyi55 , thanks for raising the issue.
For the installation and running it, please use yarn instead of npm as per the documentation:

yarn i
yarn run dev

For the connectivity issue, I just tried to start a Neo4j sandbox + connect to it and did face any issues.
Can you please:

• Open the developer console, click connect and paste here any errors showing up in the console
• Make sure the protocol, hostname and port, username and password are correct to your sandbox instance
  For example, mine looks like:
  Protocol: bolt+s
  Hostname: 7ee956fdb672a512b2a7937f53234d73.neo4jsandbox.com
  Port: 7687

[Ifeanyi55]

Thanks @msenechal for reacting to my issue. I have been able to connect to my sandbox instance, after running yarn run dev. Nevertheless, I do not know where to go from here as there isn't much options on the interface. For example, where do I write javascript code? Is there a comprehensive getting started documentation I could consult to get started using this application? My interface is the same as in the screenshot above. The only difference now is that I have connected to Neo4j sandbox. I would appreciate any advice you give. Thanks!

[msenechal]

Hi @Ifeanyi55 , glad to hear that fixed your issue and you were able to connect to your sandbox Neo4j DB.
So this StarterKit is meant to be a template so you will indeed have to write the logic to retrieve+visualize your data.

In short, this can be done by adding your functions to the Driver.tsx and calling them in the Content.tsx + rendering it.
For example, you can write a function getPersons() in Driver.tsx which would be a

MATCH (p:Person) RETURN p LIMIT 5

Then, in Content.tsx you would call this getPersons(), fetch the data and render person.name in a table or use a visualization library to render a graph.

You can find more information on the Neo4j Javascript Driver here: https://neo4j.com/docs/javascript-manual/current/ .
Apart from this official javascript documentation, there is no "getting started" specific for this StarterKit, altho I think it would be a great addition.
I created a doc improvement GH Issue that you can follow here. Since this is a different issue and your initial issue is now resolved, I will go ahead and close this one.
Thanks again for raising this and for providing valuable feedback!

[Ifeanyi55]

Thanks @msenechal

[msenechal]

FYI @Ifeanyi55 , the doc has now been published and a small example is now available in the official documentation:
https://neo4j.com/labs/neo4j-needle-starterkit/1.0/examples/