News and updates for 2018

Well I've finally got through my TODO list so I've released a new version of RGraph - version 4.68. Woo! You can see all of the changes that went into this release by looking through the changelog ( https://www.rgraph.net/changelog.html ).

Some of the changes in this release include:

• Curved sticks for the Pie chart (which, I might add, are very sexy!)
  • pie-pink.html
  • svg-pie-sheets.html
• The gradient syntax has been extended with a JSON syntax alternative which allows you a little bit of extra control over the gradient
• Some defaults have been changed for the Rose and RScatter charts
• The SVG Rose chart has two new effects (grow() and roundRobin() )
• The Gantt chart method of configuration has been changed to an object (ie with textual indexes). This should make it easier to read and write - though if you choose to upgrade you'll need to update to the new syntax.
• The canvas Line chart has a new animationTraceCenter effect. There's an example in the download archive of the new effect that demonstrates it.
• The CSV reader and the Google Sheets connector have been made to work standalone - ie without the RGraph.common.core.js file. This means that can use them in your own code if you wish to (and not have to include the RGraph.common.core.js file in your page.

Looking towards the next version I'll be looking to devise a way to bring some order to the canvas property names. So they look more like the way the SVG properties do.

Eg backgroundGridAutofitNumhlines would become backgroundGridHlinesCount. Some of the property names really need this.

https://www.rgraph.net/download.html

Finally! A new version of RGraph is now available.

That time has come - I've dusted off the release script - tidied up the download section - and finally gone through with it and released a new version of RGraph.

Woo! Yes calm down people (all 2 of you...) - version 4.67 is now available for download from the website. There's nothing particularly massive in it but there are bug fixes to the canvas Bipolar chart, new documentation for getting RGraph charts through PhantomJS (ie via the command line), a new SVG Gauge chart, the Google Sheets import utility can now be used without the rest of RGraph (ie standalone in your own apps) and angled X-axis text for SVG charts.

Read the changelog and download the new version:

https://www.rgraph.net/download.html

This news article is the last in the series of the 'Spotlight on...' posts and it concentrates on the dedicated CSV import object. This object is more comprehensive than the basic RGraph.AJAX.getCSV() AJAX function.

Think of getCSV() as a quick and dirty function whereas the CSV import object is more comprehensive and versatile.

If you have your own CSV import facility then by all means use that - you shouldn't have any trouble using it with RGraph.

A continuation of yesterday's spotlight on the Google Sheets connector and this one focuses on the AJAX functionality that RGraph comes with. There are two separate sets of AJAX functions - one for SVG and one for canvas.

They do anything from fetching a single number to fetching and parsing a JSON file. There's also a general AJAX fetch function so you can get hold of any page you wish to.

When using RGraph you're not limited to the AJAX functions that come with RGraph - you can quite happily use your own (or the jQuery AJAX functions for example).

This news article shines a spotlight on the SVG Google Sheets connector (there's one for canvas too). Using this you can connect the charts that are displayed on your website directly to a spreadsheet in the online Google Sheets application - without any intervention on your part or having to export it first.

This way you can update a value in your spreadsheet and your website is updated immediately.

Initially, the Google Sheets connector was created for use with RGraph but it's designed so that there are few dependencies - only a few functions in the RGraph core library and for the next release this will be removed from both the canvas and the SVG versions of the library.

So if you want to use this connector with your own code then you can - and it's going to be easier as of the next release.