Comments on: The FlexChart Manifesto

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:38:31 +0000

Thanks for the clarification. Ya, I know they're two different use cases and I agree the native functionality may be lost, but I think your charts could stand tall enough as an alternative if you bent it that way. There's plenty of flash charts out there, but I don't know of any other as3 coded charts that can be embedded as another flex app. Anyways, thank you for the quick response, and great job!

By: barneyb

barneyb — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:58:04 +0000

That error is quasi-intentional. For backwards compatibility, FlexChart requests descriptor.cfm if it's not provided with a chart descriptor as a flashvar. If you don't have your descriptor when you render the SWF, just supply "" as the descriptor. If you look at the source of the demo app (http://www.barneyb.com/flexchart/), you'll see I do just that:

swfobject.embedSWF("FlexChart.swf", "chart", 640, 400, "9.0.28", false, {
    descriptor: "" // <--- here is the descriptor
  },
  {
    bgcolor: "#ffffff",
    wmode: "transparent"
  }
);

By supplying the flash var, you'll prevent the automatic request of descriptor.cfm. Once the SWF is loaded, call setDescriptor() on the SWF itself (it's an externalized function) to supply a new one. As for replacing the FBPro license, it's not really in competition. This widget is a charting widget for JS/HTML applications. FBPro is for building Flex applications, possibly containing internal charts. You'd be hard pressed to cleanly embed FlexChart into a Flex app (though you COULD do it), but you wouldn't get any of the native Flex functionality with it. Two totally separate use cases.

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:19:48 +0000

Just to follow up, I've switched the code to

private function drawCharts():void {
Object(loadedSM.application).setDescriptor(xmlBarney);
}

In either case, here's the error I'm getting:

Error #2044: Unhandled ioError:. text=Error #2032: Stream Error. URL: file:///C:/Users/Greg%20Ryan/Documents/Flex%20Builder%203/soResume/bin-debug/descriptor.cfm?r=0.32477057399228215
at FlexChart/setDescriptorUrl()
at FlexChart/onInitialize()

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:11:32 +0000

Maybe I'm trying to do this wrong, but if I try to load FlexCharts via a swfloader in Flex 3, how would I load chart data into it? Seems like a great alternative to buying the Pro license.

Currently trying something like:

[Bindable]
public var loadedSM:SystemManager;

private function initBarney():void {
loadedSM = SystemManager(bChart.content);
}

// the loaded application.
private function drawCharts():void {
loadedSM.application["descriptor"] = xmlBarney;
}

private var xmlBarney:XML =

By: barneyb

barneyb — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 01:00:35 +0000

Patrick, legendPlacement="bottom" on the element. There's no support for font styling at the moment, and I don't have any plans to add it. I develop it in my spare time based on my needs, by and large. The grouped legends stuff was for one of FlexChart's business users, and they paid for my time. Covering development costs is the best way to get on the priority list. ;) The XML of FlexChart is basically a DSL for chart description (both structure and data), and my code simply interprets that DSL in the context of the Flex's charting components. In a nutshell, my code reads the XML and creates the corresponding charting components based on what the XML says. The grouped legend and the syncing of multiple y-axes are the only custom visualization code that I've written for FlexChart. Reimplementing the DSL in the context of some other charting environment (or even building one from scratch) would be relatively straightforward; that's intentional.

By: Patrick Whittingham

Patrick Whittingham — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:37:53 +0000

Barney,

Thanks. How does one do a legend below the chart? Also, Can one change the font-size, font-style for the values? How does your code interface with the flex chart components.

By: barneyb

barneyb — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:07:10 +0000

Patrick,

You bet, both solid colors and gradients. Check out the demo app at http://barneyb.com/flexchart to see some examples of both.

By: Patrick Whittingham

Patrick Whittingham — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 11:56:09 +0000

Barney,

Does your flexchart allow the line or bars to be a different color. I didn't notice it?

Pat