| FusionCharts Free: Cross-platform charts that rock |
| From: linux.com read times: 155 |
Provided by yangyi at 2008-05-07 23:21:46 |
It has been said that the best things in life are free. While this isn't always true, it applies in this case. If you've struggled with GNUplot, JPgraph or other charting applications, FusionCharts Free is a breath of fresh air. Have you dreamed of finding a charting and graphing application that is simple to install, easy to configure, and drop-dead gorgeous? Stop dreaming and download a copy of FusionCharts Free. You'll be producing professional quality charts and graphs in no time. Created by InfoSoft Global, FusionCharts Free is a scaled-down version of FusionCharts v3 and uses Adobe Flash MX, ActionScript 1, and XML data files to produce cross-platform and cross-browser compliant charts. Unlike traditional graphing applications such as GNUplot and JPgraph, FusionCharts doesn't rely on server-based scripting languages and isn't tied to a specific platform or database. While it supports scripting languages like PHP and Ruby, they aren't required. And that's the beauty of this application: you can install FusionCharts Free on your desktop PC or on an enterprise Web server in just a few minutes without worrying about required packages and dependencies. Everything you need to produce a wide variety of charts and graphs is included in the distribution. Installation and configurationWe tested FusionCharts Free on a CentOS 4 server running the Apache Web server. After downloading the application's zip file we uncompressed the contents in our home directory. We then created a FusionCharts directory under our Web root path of /var/www/html and copied the supplied SWF files into this directory. FusionCharts Free provides 22 different chart types, including single-series, multi-series, stacked, combination, candle, and Gantt charts. After we copied the SWF files we made a working directory called ChartTest in /var/www/html, into which we placed our chart data files and our chart-generating HTML files. We had root access to this server and could therefore create and access files in the Web root directory; if you don't have root access on your server, you'll need to have a public_html folder in your home directory to store the HTML files and data files. FusionCharts requires that data to be charted be formatted using XML. While the Free version requires users to do this manually, FusionCharts v3 comes equipped with a utility to handle the conversion. ...... Please access the below link to view the full content. Original link: http://www.linux.com/feature/133... |
