kmarshchart_fu is a charting library for Ruby with multiple backend support and easy, convention over configuration, data access.
== Examples
The simplest thing that could possibly work:
<%= chart_fu Post %>
Would give you a Google Chart with the number of posts created per day.
Adding a few more options:
<%= chart_fu Post, :title => "Posts Over Time", :from => 1.week.ago %>
chart_fu understands other Ruby data structures as well:
<%= chart_fu [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [5, 4, 3, 2, 1] %>
<%= chart_fu [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] %>
<%= chart_fu {"A" => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], "B" => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]} %>
<%= chart_fu {Date.new(2008, 2, 1) => 1, Date.new(2008, 3, 1) => 5},
:from => Date.new(2008, 1, 1), :to => Date.new(2008, 12, 31) %>
== Principles
chart_fu aims to be civil when collecting data and displaying charts, using sensible defaults that will create meaningful, pleasing, and readable output.
== Backends
chart_fu doesn't generate graphics on its own, but rather acts as a abstract frontend to whatever charting library you choose. This means only having to write charting code once and only once.
Support is planned for:
- Google Chart API (via http://gchartrb.rubyforge.org/) - default
- Flot (http://code.google.com/p/flot/)
- Gruff (http://nubyonrails.com/pages/gruff)
- Chart Director (http://www.advsofteng.com/)
- Open Flash Chart (http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/)
== Inspiration
The inspiration for chart_fu came from the pain of switching charting libraries 3 times on lifemetric and spending way too much time trying to get simple charts done.