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There are quite a few. BUT: When I looked into this a few months ago, I found that PHP generation of graphs is expensive. It was cheaper to send just the data

There are quite a few. BUT: When I looked into this a few months ago, I found that PHP generation of graphs is expensive. It was cheaper to send just the data to the browser and let a Flash control or jQuery do the graphing. This removes a big bottleneck. I settled on a for-pay mapping Flash control and an open source Flash graphs control. Both accept data in sensible XML and so it wasn't hard to talk to them.

NathanKP 17y ago
Okay, that was one of my worries, that PHP generation of the graphs would overload my server. However, I haven't yet found a good looking flash based graph generator. Open Flash Chart looks like it might be an option, but I don't really like the way their charts look. I would love to find something that looks and acts like the charts that Google Analytics uses.
- pierrefar 17y ago
  Open Flash Chart is what I use and you can style it extensively. The default is horrible though, I agree. Getting the GA look, or something very close to it, shouldn't be too hard IMHO. Getting the functionality might be tricky if the control doesn't support it.
  - NathanKP 17y ago
    The main thing that I want is for their to be a tooltip over data points so that the user doesn't have to "sight" over to the axis to try to read the graph. If Open Flash Chart supports that it would be attractive.
    - pierrefar 17y ago
      Yes you can add labels. I know as I've done it :)
- dryicerx 17y ago
  I too would recommend you use client side. For client side, you can use http://code.google.com/p/flot/ http://code.google.com/p/flot/ http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/ http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/ < what google analytics uses http://www.simile-widgets.org/ http://www.simile-widgets.org/ http://www.danvk.org/dygraphs/ http://www.danvk.org/dygraphs/ http://highcharts.com/ http://highcharts.com/ < looks awesome http://www.maani.us/ http://www.maani.us/ http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/ http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/
  - NathanKP 17y ago
    Thank you for the list. I will look through the options. Has anyone tried the jQuery chart plugin?

NathanKP 17y ago

Okay, that was one of my worries, that PHP generation of the graphs would overload my server. However, I haven't yet found a good looking flash based graph generator. Open Flash Chart looks like it might be an option, but I don't really like the way their charts look. I would love to find something that looks and acts like the charts that Google Analytics uses.

pierrefar 17y ago
Open Flash Chart is what I use and you can style it extensively. The default is horrible though, I agree. Getting the GA look, or something very close to it, shouldn't be too hard IMHO. Getting the functionality might be tricky if the control doesn't support it.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  The main thing that I want is for their to be a tooltip over data points so that the user doesn't have to "sight" over to the axis to try to read the graph. If Open Flash Chart supports that it would be attractive.
  - pierrefar 17y ago
    Yes you can add labels. I know as I've done it :)
dryicerx 17y ago
I too would recommend you use client side. For client side, you can use http://code.google.com/p/flot/ http://code.google.com/p/flot/ http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/ http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/ < what google analytics uses http://www.simile-widgets.org/ http://www.simile-widgets.org/ http://www.danvk.org/dygraphs/ http://www.danvk.org/dygraphs/ http://highcharts.com/ http://highcharts.com/ < looks awesome http://www.maani.us/ http://www.maani.us/ http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/ http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/
- NathanKP 17y ago
  Thank you for the list. I will look through the options. Has anyone tried the jQuery chart plugin?