Friday, April 20, 2012

Google Chart APIs

The last time (around 1 year ago), when I had evaluated Google Charts API, I was a bit disappointed. The Chart API only enabled you to embed an image (chart) that would be created on Google servers.

But looks like Google has completely revamped the concept and branding and have a brand new Chart API.

The new charting API looks cool and very easy to use. There are also samples and libraries that will help you write server side code to pass chart data to the client. I was particularly impressed with the Java DataSource library and Oracle PL/SQL library.

It is important to note that Google right now, does not allow these JS API to be downloaded offline and used in a web app that does not have internet connection (e.g. intranet applications). Please consider this constraint before you decide to use Google Chart Tools.

The older version of the image charts is still available here.There is also an online tool for quicking creating an image of a chart. Could be useful if you quickly want to create some stuff for your PPTs :)

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