dygraphs is an open source JavaScript charting library that provides developers with fast and flexible tools for creating interactive, zoomable charts of time series. This library can be used to develop interactive charts on the X and Y axis and to display powerful diagrams. Dygraphs.js can use five types of input: CSV data, URL, array (native format), function, DataTable.
The main advantage of this library is that it is interactive right out-of-the-box. Interactions are easily discoverable: click-and-drag provides zooming and double-click allows zooming back out, mouseover highlights individual values, and shift-drag action will pan the area. Moreover, adjusting the averaging period is easy - just change the number and hit enter.
dygraphs not only displays dense data sets, but also enables users to explore and analyze them, since library’s visualizations contain a great number of views. Users are able to interpret separate portions of a data-set (e.g. specific months or hours) as well as the timeframe in its entirety. Basically, the more data is being used, the higher the functionality of the chart is.
Main Dygraphs.js features
The dygraphs JavaScript library:
- is lightweight, fast, and responsive;
- needs neither external server nor Flash to plot time series;
- is compatible with all major browsers, including Internet Explorer (using excanvas) and works perfectly on mobile devices responding to touch sensitivity;
- supports multiple data series and handles huge data sets;
- сan intelligently chart fractions;
- is interactive out-of-the-box and user-friendly, provides zoom, pan and mouseover by default;
- has strong support for error bands around data series;
- displays Annotations on the chart;
- has adjustable averaging period;
- is compatible with the Google Visualization API;
- is highly customizable, with click-through actions and custom callbacks there is a lot of place for customization.
There is opportunity to use Dygraphs.js with Plone CMS. The collective.js.dygraphs package ensures the application of this charting library for Plone-based websites.
All of the above shows that dygraphs is a great choice as a data visualization framework. To get more information visit the dygraphs.com website and to try it out see the DEMOs.