view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

README  view on Meta::CPAN

            data2=[6,7,8,9,10]&
            dclrs=[blue,yellow,green]>

    Options can also be sent as x-www-form-urlencoded data (ie., a
    form). This allows simple charting forms to be set up, also,
    Internet Explorer does not allow query strings larger than a
    kilobyte so in those cases a POSTED form must be used. Parameters in
    the query string take precedence over a form if specified.

INSTALLATION
    Like any other CPAN module, if you are not familiar with CPAN
    modules, see:
    http://www.cpan.org/doc/manual/html/pod/perlmodinstall.html

    MAKE SURE TO RESTART YOUR APACHE SERVER using "apachectl graceful"
    after upgrading this or any other Apache Perl module.

DESCRIPTION
    The primary purpose of this module is to allow a very easy to use,
    lightweight and fast charting capability for static pages, dynamic
    pages and CGI scripts, with the chart creation process abstracted
    and placed on any server.

    For example, embedding a pie chart can be as simple as:

            <img src="http://www.some-server.com/chart?type=pie&
            x_labels=[greed,pride,wrath]&data1=[10,50,20]&
            dclrs=[green,purple,red]"
            alt="pie chart of a few deadly sins">
            <!-- All above options are optional except for data1 -->

    And it gets cached both server side, and along any proxies to the
    client, and on the client's browser cache. Not to mention, chart
    generation is very fast.

    Of course, more complex things will be better done directly in your
    own Perl handlers, but this module allows a non-Perl environment to
    have access to the capabilities of GD::Graph.

    Another solution is to use ASP scripting with Microsoft Excel, which
    of course requires a Windows NT server and I have no idea how easy
    this is to do, or how fast.

    There are also many other ways to connect programs with charting
    capabilities, such as GNUPlot, or rrdtool to a web server. These may
    or may not be faster/more featureful etc.

TIPS
    Most more complicated things depend on knowing the GD::Graph
    interface.

    Firstly, make sure you are not using any spaces! If you want to pass
    a space in a parameter in a URL-encoded string, use %20, in a form
    use a "+".

    Make sure to use "cache=0" or "PerlSetVar CacheSize 0" when
    debugging, otherwise you will spend hours being very confused.

FONTS
    GD::Graph has some options that take a font description, such as
    title_font, legend_font, etc. (these map to the appropriate set_FOO
    methods in GD::Graph, see that manpage).

    The following fonts are built-in to GD, these strings will resolve
    into the appropriate fonts except when quoted:

    gdSmallFont, gdLargeFont, gdMediumBoldFont, gdTinyFont, gdGiantFont

    There is also a way to use your own True Type Fonts. See the
    TTFFontPath variable under SYNOPSIS for how to set the search path
    for fonts. MAKE SURE your fonts are readable by the user the Apache
    server runs under, this is usually "www-data" or "nobody". Otherwise
    your fonts will mysteriously fail with no notice.

    Fonts can also be specified as a relative path to the DocumentRoot
    of the server, these must begin with "../". For example, if you have
    a directory "fonts" under DocumentRoot, then you might specify a
    font like so:

            ../fonts/arial.ttf

    If DocumentRoot happens to be "/var/www" then the font that will be
    looked up is "/var/www/fonts/arial.ttf".

    Sizes can be specified by using a list with the name and size. For
    example, if arial.ttf can be found somewhere in your TTFFontPath,
    you can do:

            ...title_font=(arial.ttf,20)

    To get a title using font Arial, in 20 points.

    Note that GD::Text does not parse out the names of fonts and such,
    you have to give it an actual filename, matches are
    case-insensitive. So if using the Microsoft Windows core fonts,
    Arial Bold would be "arialbd.ttf". Here's an example:

            http://server/chart?data1=[1,2,3,4,5]&
            title_font=(arialbd.ttf,20)&
            title=Just%20A%20Line

COLORS
    All colors, including those specified for the captionN option, are
    specified using the colour names from GD::Graph::colour. They are,
    at time of writing:

    white, lgray, gray, dgray, black, lblue, blue, dblue, gold, lyellow,
    yellow, dyellow, lgreen, green, dgreen, lred, red, dred, lpurple,
    purple, dpurple, lorange, orange, pink, dpink, marine, cyan, lbrown,
    dbrown.

IMAGES
    You can place a logo in any corner of the graph using the "logo",
    "logo_resize" and "logo_position" options. See GD::Graph. If you
    just want a background image that is resized to fit your graph, see
    the "background_image" option herein.

TEXT/CAPTIONS
    The following GD::Graph options control placing text on the graph:
    title, x_label and y_label. GD::Graph for those and related options.
    In addition, this modules allows you to use the captionN option(s),