An Open Access Peon

13 September 2006

Javascript Graphs

Citebase now has the Correlation Generator again, which was always in need of some fixing.

I've replaced the Java-based charts with Javascript ones, based on Emil A Eklund's Chart Widget. The advantages of the Javascript charts are that they load quicker (not requiring a Java VM) and that it's much easier for me to customize them to my needs.

While the chart widget is compatible with IE and Safari I haven't bothered to put in all the wrapper code for the AJAX and element searching in my glue code - I figure this is such a specialist tool it's not unreasonable to expect users to download Firefox.

While I'm happy enough with the implementation for the Generator to be published, the charts could really do with a mechanism to zoom - most of the interesting stuff in citation and download data happens very quickly, hence can be eclipsed by the 'long-tail'.

Regardless of the current drawbacks, I think it looks and works pretty well.

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