Comments on: Google Chart API is pretty cool

By: Adrian Rosebrock

Adrian Rosebrock — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 01:06:20 +0000

I absolutely love the Google Chart API. It is so useful and perfect displaying complex data on a webpage. Displaying data with JavaScript/CSS is possible, but this greatly simplifies the matter. Good summary of the core aspects, and I totally agree – it is easier to use than gnuplot.

By: kometbomb

kometbomb — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:14:28 +0000

Thanks for your comments.

I can save the images without any cookies (unless Google looks at my IP address or something else). I tried it with wget, so I guess it would work with fopen() as well.

I have to agree in that the API could be better after toying around with it. But I think it still hits the spot considering you can easily use a database to prepare the results – it’s only the graphing that is often missing.

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:41:22 +0000

Just my $.02-

The Google Chart API is really neat but it doesn’t provide enough automatic features, and everything must be calculated. It’s hard to describe but when trying to generate them automatically it becomes tough. Seemingly obvious features are missing.

Also, in regards to caching the graphs, you cannot do this programatically (at least not without big hacks) because Google uses cookies and such to display the graphs and if you just fopen() the URL or something, it’s not included. Of course nothing prevents you from Right Click > Save As the graphs, but that is slow and awkward.

Just a few comments from myself.