We're thrilled to feature Zhuoyang Meng in this edition of the Preswald Community Showcase! π Zhuoyang has built an impressive Preswald app that analyzes and visualizes Pixar films data using interactive charts and tables.
π Project Overview
π Preswald and Analytics
This blog explores how Preswald utilizes analytics to examine Pixar film trends, providing insights into box office performance, audience ratings, and production budgets through dynamic visualizations.
Project Name: Pixar Films Explorer
Built by: Zhuoyang Meng
Dataset: Pixar films dataset
Check out the project on GitHub
π Description
Zhuoyang's project provides an interactive dashboard for exploring Pixar films' performance. The app allows users to:
- Filter films by release year, box office revenue, and audience rating.
- Visualize trends using Plotly charts to analyze revenue growth and critical reception.
- Compare production budgets dynamically in an interactive table.
- Gain insights into Pixar's most successful films and production patterns.
With Preswald, Zhuoyang has created a seamless user experience, where users can dynamically adjust inputs and get instant updates without writing frontend code.

π Code Snippets
Hereβs a sneak peek at how Zhuoyang's project is structured:
Loading the Data
from preswald import connect, get_df, text
connect() # Establish connection to data
# Load Pixar films dataset
pixar_df = get_df("pixar_films")
Creating an Interactive Revenue Trend Chart
from preswald import plotly
import plotly.express as px
fig = px.bar(pixar_df, x='release_year', y='box_office', color='film_title',
title='Pixar Box Office Revenue Over Time')
plotly(fig)
Displaying Pixar Film Data in a Table
from preswald import table
table(pixar_df[['film_title', 'release_year', 'box_office', 'audience_rating', 'budget']])
With just a few lines of Python, Zhuoyang has built a fully interactive data app powered by Preswald! π
What is Preswald?
Preswald is an open-source framework for building data apps, dashboards, and internal tools with just Python. It provides pre-built UI components like tables, charts, and forms, so you don't have to write frontend code. Users can interact with your app, changing inputs, running queries, and updating visualizations, without you needing to manage the UI manually.
Preswald tracks state and dependencies, making computations efficient by updating only when necessary. It uses a workflow DAG to manage execution order, ensuring performance and predictability. Preswald allows you to turn Python scripts into shareable, production-ready applications easily.
Key Features
- Add UI components to Python scripts: user-interactive buttons, text inputs, tables, and charts.
- Stateful execution with automat