Posted by Kessin on April 19, 2009 at 12:09am
I'm having a very difficult time getting my head around charts in Drupal. What is the best module to start with? I've tried them all but can't seem to figure them out. I've been trying to read all I can find, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to read. Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places?
Here's what I need to do: I need to be able plug in my own numbers for the axis to show percentages and other numbers that have to do w/ the real estate market. I'll have to manually add to them every quarter, and I can't get these numbers to just update automatically through the web, it's all protected stuff if you know what I'm mean.
Any suggestions? Modules, videos, reading? Thanks for any help anyone could give :))
Comments
Some progress
I went back to the charts module and tried it again. After some tinkering, I was able to get it working w/ the Google plug in, but it took some working w/. After I get more familiar w/ php and charts, I'm sure I'll be able get competent in building a chart.
I'm still looking for good reading and / or videos to build on where I'm at. Any help would be appreciated. :))
Thanks,
http://scottmckinnis.com
http://scottmckinnis.com
For anyone watching my
For anyone watching my thread here :), there's an article over at Lullabot that is helping me a lot: http://www.lullabot.com/articles/drupal-charting
http://scottmckinnis.com
http://scottmckinnis.com
I'm using ChartDirector for
I'm using ChartDirector for the chart generation. I'm not using a module at all, just embedding the charts into the content using PHP.
thanks kessin
@kessin the lullabot link above is a very helpful article. And FYI, I am watching your thread for chart tips :)
@cjester Thanks for the tip.
@cjester Thanks for the tip. I may decide to use something like that at some point, but if I did I'd probably use google charts, which seems more open.
@ariesto I'm glad it helped :)) Haven't had much time to work on this project for a while, but every module that I've worked w/ (and this is probably my own inexperience), but I can't figure out how to make up my own x & y axis's. Seems like there probably is a way w/ all of them, I just haven't gotten it yet.
@acrollet on twitter gave me this: http://drupal.org/files/issues/chart_view_example2.txt which I've imported as a view and played w/. This seems like a good way to go using views, but I still haven't been able to use it with my own data. This may be from my inexperience w/ views also. With the above mentioned view, you have to be using the charts module as well.
Still learning,
http://scottmckinnis.com
http://scottmckinnis.com
So I have some charts now:
So I have some charts now: http://scottmckinnis.com/stats What I did was to install the Charts module and all it's cohorts, then I went to admin/settings/charts and set it up a little like I wanted, copied the code there via firebug, and plugged in my own x and y variables to get what I wanted. This works, but I'd like to be able to style it better, and it doesn't seem like I can just use what ofc has on their site b/c drupal always has it's own way of doing things.
I'm sure I'll put 2 + 2 together and get 4 at some point, but it's not all that clear to me yet. It would be great if we could come up w/ a way to enter a bunch of stuff in a gui in the back end of drupal, and have it spit out what we need. This isn't a criticism, I would just like to see this at some point, and maybe it's already in motion I don't know. Also if I could help w/ this (given the fact that I'm not a drupal ninja yet) I'd like to.
http://scottmckinnis.com
http://scottmckinnis.com
So, where is this going?
OK, so we have a bunch of partly-working chart modules out there. For example, "Charts," is starting to work (even with views), but there are tons of problems with it. For example, there are not even axis labels or compatibility with dates.
I would argue that there is a lot of work to be done. We are a long way from being able to do things like you would in other environments. I'm experienced with mathematical command-line software (Stata, Matlab,...) and am pulling my hair out with the limitations in Drupal, in comparison.
Can someone tell me: Where is this going? What is the future? Which projects have work being done and you could reasonably expect a good package emerging in, say, the next 3 months?