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109 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
109 lines
3.7 KiB
Plaintext
About
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-----
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Flot is a Javascript plotting library for jQuery. Read more at the
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website:
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http://code.google.com/p/flot/
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Take a look at the examples linked from above, they should give a good
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impression of what Flot can do and the source code of the examples is
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probably the fastest way to learn how to use Flot.
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Installation
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------------
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Just include the Javascript file after you've included jQuery.
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Note that you need to get a version of Excanvas (I currently suggest
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you take the one bundled with Flot as it contains a bugfix for drawing
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filled shapes) which is canvas emulation on Internet Explorer. You can
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include the excanvas script like this:
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<!--[if IE]><script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="excanvas.pack.js"></script><![endif]-->
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If it's not working on your development IE 6.0, check that it has
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support for VML which excanvas is relying on. It appears that some
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stripped down versions used for test environments on virtual machines
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lack the VML support.
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Also note that you need at least jQuery 1.2.1.
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Basic usage
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-----------
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Create a placeholder div to put the graph in:
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<div id="placeholder"></div>
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You need to set the width and height of this div, otherwise the plot
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library doesn't know how to scale the graph. You can do it inline like
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this:
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<div id="placeholder" style="width:600px;height:300px"></div>
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You can also do it with an external stylesheet. Make sure that the
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placeholder isn't within something with a display:none CSS property -
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in that case, Flot has trouble measuring label dimensions which
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results in garbled looks and might have trouble measuring the
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placeholder dimensions which is fatal (it'll throw an exception).
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Then when the div is ready in the DOM, which is usually on document
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ready, run the plot function:
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$.plot($("#placeholder"), data, options);
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Here, data is an array of data series and options is an object with
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settings if you want to customize the plot. Take a look at the
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examples for some ideas of what to put in or look at the reference
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in the file "API.txt". Here's a quick example that'll draw a line from
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(0, 0) to (1, 1):
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$.plot($("#placeholder"), [ [[0, 0], [1, 1]] ], { yaxis: { max: 1 } });
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The plot function immediately draws the chart and then returns a Plot
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object with a couple of methods.
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What's with the name?
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---------------------
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First: it's pronounced with a short o, like "plot". Not like "flawed".
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So "Flot" is like "Plot".
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And if you look up "flot" in a Danish-to-English dictionary, some up
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the words that come up are "good-looking", "attractive", "stylish",
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"smart", "impressive", "extravagant". One of the main goals with Flot
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is pretty looks. Flot is supposed to be "flot".
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Frequently asked questions
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--------------------------
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Q: Can I export the graph?
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A: This is a limitation of the canvas technology. There's a hook in
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the canvas object for getting an image out, but you won't get the tick
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labels. And it's not likely to be supported by IE. At this point, your
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best bet is probably taking a screenshot, e.g. with PrtScn.
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Q: Flot doesn't work with [framework xyz]!
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A: The problem is most likely within the framework, or your use of the
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framework.
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The only non-standard thing used by Flot is the canvas tag; otherwise
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it is simply a series of absolute positioned divs within the
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placeholder tag you put in. If this is not working, it's probably
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because the framework you're using is doing something weird with the
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DOM. As a last resort, you might try replotting and see if it helps.
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If you find there's a specific thing we can do to Flot to help, feel
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free to submit a bug report. Otherwise, you're welcome to ask for help
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on the mailing list, but please don't submit a bug report to Flot -
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try the framework instead.
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