dynamic line graphs?

[twoodcc]

ok, so i have a database data in it, and i need to make a line graph with it. now, right now i have it working with a custom php graph, but it looks pretty bad.

so i'm wondering, i've seen online some nice line-graphs, and so how is the best way to go about making a better graph?

also, the data is linked with a date. and i'd like to have the user pick a date range, and then the graph shows that date range. the range could just be a year, to the user picks a year and it shows all the data from that year.

but what language should i use for this?

 

[SrWebDeveloper]

Because your question is so subjective, wait for more replies than just mine as everyone has their favorite choice of software for graphs. Most languages has support for graphs these days. I'll speak to PHP and ColdFusion.

In terms of free, open source I prefer to work with PHP, but in our shop we also have ColdFusion MX which has excellent built in graphing capabilities using cfchart/cfchartseries commands. But CF is not free, it's commercial server software.

Here is a good free PHP class you can download (phpclasses.org is free to join)

In terms of COTS or shareware ($) this page has the best professional collection if you want the coolest looking 3D graphs and such, but of course some of these are rather pricey and not all are PHP so you can see the differences:

Commercial Line graph or charting software

-jim

 

[angelwatt]

I've used SVG to create some graphics that can do graphs, but support for SVG in browsers is still limited on some (cough IE), so really isn't a recommendation, but a noting. Though if there's tools that can take a SVG and export it to png or the like then you might have something.

Flash is a potential option as well. I'm sure some people have created libraries to use to interact with a database and put it into a chart.

Edit: With some Google power:
http://www.maani.us/xml_charts/
http://www.jpowered.com/php-scripts/adv-graph-chart/index.htm
http://lifehacker.biz/articles/tools-for-creating-charts-and-diagrams/
http://www.justdreamweaver.com/wa-dynamic-flash-charts.html
http://devzone.zend.com/article/3774-Dynamically-Creating-Graphs-and-Charts-with-PHP-and-GDChart

 

[twoodcc]

Because your question is so subjective, wait for more replies than just mine as everyone has their favorite choice of software for graphs. Most languages has support for graphs these days. I'll speak to PHP and ColdFusion.

In terms of free, open source I prefer to work with PHP, but in our shop we also have ColdFusion MX which has excellent built in graphing capabilities using cfchart/cfchartseries commands. But CF is not free, it's commercial server software.

Here is a good free PHP class you can download (phpclasses.org is free to join)

In terms of COTS or shareware ($) this page has the best professional collection if you want the coolest looking 3D graphs and such, but of course some of these are rather pricey and not all are PHP so you can see the differences:

Commercial Line graph or charting software

-jim

thanks for the reply! i will check out the links that you gave. basically right now i'm using php for my graphs, but they are all made by hand (i made all the code for drawing each element of the graph), and they look pretty basic.

so i'm looking for something that is a little easier to work with

I've used SVG to create some graphics that can do graphs, but support for SVG in browsers is still limited on some (cough IE), so really isn't a recommendation, but a noting. Though if there's tools that can take a SVG and export it to png or the like then you might have something.

Flash is a potential option as well. I'm sure some people have created libraries to use to interact with a database and put it into a chart.

Edit: With some Google power:
http://www.maani.us/xml_charts/
http://www.jpowered.com/php-scripts/adv-graph-chart/index.htm
http://lifehacker.biz/articles/tools-for-creating-charts-and-diagrams/
http://www.justdreamweaver.com/wa-dynamic-flash-charts.html
http://devzone.zend.com/article/3774-Dynamically-Creating-Graphs-and-Charts-with-PHP-and-GDChart

thanks for the reply! i will check out those links. but believe me, i have searched google several times already about this, and everything i find wants me to download scripts and stuff

 

[twoodcc]

so i am still using php for my line graphs. is there anyway to make the lines thicker in php?

 

[samwich]

just saw this

http://www.maani.us/charts4/

you might be interested, takes php data passes it to a swf for displaying

 

[twoodcc]

just saw this

http://www.maani.us/charts4/

you might be interested, takes php data passes it to a swf for displaying

thanks for the link! i will try this out tomorrow!