Basic excel like charting component for Ruby on Rails?

Question

I've been using amcharts (a flash component) to produce charts from within my rails application.

I'm curious.. is there a GEM or plugin that allows me to include a charting component in my web app that lets users mix from any data sets they want, and produce basic charts on their own? It would take me ages to script such a tool...

Ideally, I'd like it to read anbunch of xml (or whatever.. perhaps data right out of my database) that has multi-variable data, and the user can use the component to customize his/her own chart with several series, or however they want. A "dummbed" down version of excel, delivered over the web :)

Answer 1

Well you're looking for a graphic images generator ? There is Gruff which allows that. But I personnaly don't really like the look of the graphs generated.

There is also something language agnostic : Google Charts Api. Which allows you to generate graphics by calling a specific Google url generated with your encoded datas.

So you take your datas from wherever you want (database, xml, ...), you call one of those two libraries and you get your graph.

Answer 2

I too had been searching for Ruby supporting charting libraries. Below are additional charting resources I've not seen mentioned in this post but I've come across in the past.

• JQuery sparklines
• ProtoChart
• XML/SWF Charts
• FusionCharts free (Also have a paid version)
• Smashing Apps article on charting resources

Enjoy!