Re: Simple 2d graphing in web page - where to begin

From:

"Daniel Pitts" <googlegroupie@coloraura.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

28 Jan 2007 17:36:52 -0800

Message-ID:

<1170034612.557476.8090@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>

On Jan 28, 5:14 pm, "James Harris" <james.harri...@googlemail.com>
wrote:

My Googling has let me down here - maybe because when it comes to Java
I don't really know which type I need! If someone could point me in
the right direction I'd appreciate it.

My requirement is simple: to display a 2-d graph within a web page
where the X and Y values are taken from a database (residing on the
server hosting the web pages). The GUI is to allow panning forwards
and backwards over time (the X values are 32-bit timestamps) and
zooming in and out. That's about it. It would be a bonus if there were
a time display of the cursor position as it is moved over the image.

Java noob question: what /type/ of Java would I need? I see there are
applets, servlets, beans and swing components... oh and Javascript
thrown in to the equation. I don't know where to begin!

I notice that IE warns about the security of some embedded components
but not others. Anyone know what makes the difference?

Is there any existing code that will do the 2-d graphing, as above,
that I could modify? Is there an existing package that will do all of
what I want? It seems a pretty basic requirement.

Lastly, and thanks for staying with me, could you recommend any books
that would provide suitable source code - e.g. a Java or Javascript
cookbook?

--
TIA,
James

This really sounds like a good place for a multi-tier solution. You
would have a server or servlet application that access the database,
and a client side application (maybe using Applet or Java Web Start)
that renders the graphs.

It might actually be better to make the front-end a Flash file if you
are more concerned with "pretty rendering" than business logic on the
front end. If the display were more static, you might consider using
a servlet to render it server side, and not worry about client-side
applications.

There are really a lot of options for this. I personally would
probably start with a pure servlet/jsp implementation, which rendered
an html page and a PNG image using java imageio. Mostly because thats
what I already know.

Hope this helps,
Daniel