From: Jeff Pritchard <jp@...>
Date: 2006-06-03T10:20:48+09:00
Subject: Re: This is brain dead, but is it stupid?

Thanks for all the great suggestions so far.

I like the idea of an option to skip the colorBlob.jpg file and just use 
tables with cell background colors.  Also agree with the concern over 
making it into a psychedelic 70's Acid graphing trip.  I hate page 
design that looks like something designed by Liberace.  To each their 
own...but that's not me.

I was really hoping to get an answer to my question about the best way 
to report errors in something that will be supplying html into an erb 
document.

My goal is to make this library just barely complete enough to be useful 
for real bar graphs, but keep it simple enough that using it is a ten 
minute exercise rather than adding a bunch of installation and learning 
curve to a project.  Geoffrey and others have already cornered the 
market on the heavy artillery.  Geoffrey also covered the extreme low 
end where you're primarily after more of a customized graphics clip art, 
with sparklines.  I want to fill the niche between sparklines and gruff. 
And with nothing more than including my library.rb file for installation 
(and an optional color blob file).

I'm finding it a bit surprising that anybody is interested in horizontal 
bar graphs.  I've always found them a bit off-putting.  Like I'm 
supposed to lay my head on the table while I look at them.  Will it be 
unforgivably incomplete without support for horizontal bars?

Some other thoughts:
* I'm thinking there are probably some other more convenient ways of 
adding points
     - maybe add an array parameter as an optional last parameter to the 
constructor
     - maybe provide a method for supplying an array of points
     - maybe optionally read a file full of CSV points
     - if it were a rails app with sql, what type of input method would 
be most convenient for sticking the results of an sql query right into a 
graph?
* I want to make labeling pretty simple.  I'm thinking just set it up 
such that there are ten evenly spaced "slots" for placing a custom 'y' 
label.  If none are supplied it would fill these ten spots in with 
calculated values based on the min and max.
* I'm thinking an optional method that allows you to supply an array of 
'x' labels - one per bar.  If nothing is supplied, nothing will be 
"drawn"
* I'm thinking that "titling" of the graph can be done outside of the 
graph and not handled by the library
* In 'erb' land, is there any advantage to making it a "one liner", 
where the constructor is big and hairy and allows all possible 
parameters to be filled in, and the constructor automatically provides 
the html output?


thanks,
jp

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