Graphing Data over TIme in a Scatter Plot still unsolved. My notes and the new Flot Timemode Views module.

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R.J. Steinert's picture
Posted by R.J. Steinert on January 15, 2011 at 12:34pm

I'm looking to fulfill the use case of using Views to display a scatter plot of values over time. I've tested many modules but have found none that are able to achieve this. I've filed a number of bug reports and support requests in the process. If anyone can achieve this, I would love it if you would export a Feature module that demonstrates this. In general, it would be great to see maintainers use Feature modules to show what use cases their code does fulfill. I've gone ahead and forked the Views integration for the Flot module and created the Flot Timemode Views module (https://github.com/rj-steinert/flot-timemode-views) but this is still far from ideal. Attached are my notes to save anyone else looking to accomplish this some time. Please feel free to point out problems with my notes.

Graphing modules tested 1/15/2011

views_charts (http://drupal.org/project/views_charts) and charts_graphs (http://drupal.org/project/charts_graphs)

  1. Views Ajax support
  2. Tooltips
  3. A "Grouping field" option will sort through data and output a graph for each unique value found in specified field. Would be ideal if it grouped them onto the same graph and created a legend.
  4. Possible Use: Bar graphs? You can't control which value is assigned to the x axis. It seems to just increment the values across the x axis. Their one and only screenshot does show a bar graph.

GVS (http://drupal.org/project/gvs)

  1. Can't get it to work. No documentation and no examples of how a View should be configured.
  2. Author confirms they don't have time to get this module working. Is planning on a Drupal 7 with Views 3 release in late January http://drupal.org/node/998218
  3. Possible use: ?

Flot (http://drupal.org/project/flot)

  1. Possible use: Counting results for a given date. You can see this in action in the Managing News installation profile (ex. http://reader.rjsteinert.com)

Flot Timemode (https://github.com/rj-steinert/flot-timemode-views)

  1. Will chart over time with nice labeling on the x axis
  2. Tooltips?
  3. No grouping
  4. No padding, results run into the axis
  5. No Views Ajax support which means you can only explore data using an Exposed Filter on a Views Page Display due to how Views 2 is designed. Ajax support added 1/16/2011.

charts (http://drupal.org/project/charts)

  1. Views Ajax support
  2. Doesn't seem to understand unix time stamps or dates.
  3. Support request: http://drupal.org/node/1027846

chart (http://drupal.org/project/chart)

  1. Plagued by a bug where you can only select "Bar - Horizontal" as your graph type.

views_graphael (http://drupal.org/node/797886)

  1. Not ready yet but there has been some recent efforts.

visualize (http://drupal.org/project/visualize)

  1. Doesn't work. Is also abandoned.

Looking towards D7

rgraph (http://drupal.org/project/rgraph)

  1. Sounds promising but no set releases and the dev code fails to install http://drupal.org/node/1027896

Charts (http://drupal.org/project/charts)

  1. D7 branch created but no activity since July 2010
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