PopChart 4.0 by Corda Technologies
by: Mario Butler-Del Rio,
Catavo, Inc
Geared toward the information enthusiast, PopChart 4.0 will help any IT professional bring their data together in an easy-to-use, dynamic, web-based environment. This 100% pure Java based application has been designed to run on any platform. PopChart comes in various server, client, and desktop configurations that should suit just about anyone’s needs.
Today’s IT managers are constantly trying to organize corporate data into manageable information, which will allow them to make critical decisions involving the company they work for. Visualizing this data is imperative to being able to make these decisions on a daily basis.
PopChart 4.0 has greatly enhanced data visualization by allowing files to be converted into PDF and EPS format. This gives users more flexibility to generate very clean and visually appealing charts and graphs for better quality printing with the PDF format.
Neal Williams, CEO of Corda said, “I am excited about the new additions to our products. We have provided benefits to everyone that uses PopChart from the IT technician responsible for installation, to the IT manager responsible for implementation, to the person using the charts and graphs to understand mission critical data. I am proud of Corda’s success and continued industry leading charting and graphing solutions.”
Version 4.0 includes many new features including server fail over, custom font support, and XML support allowing information to be exchanged between different flavors of databases. One particularly exciting feature is the ability to import background images directly into files.
PopChart has a history of being a quality product, and Corda did not skimp on loading all the bells and whistles with this latest edition to the PopChart family of applications. It has better support for web services, which utilize .Net and Java architectures through XML. This will allow IT professionals to deliver graphic/text chart content as a Web Service to its users via web browser on computers, PDA’s, and wireless phones.
For visually impaired users, PopChart allows for the attachment of descriptive text to GIF, PNG, FLASH, or SVG images, which allows visually impaired users to read and understand the data. This latest version also includes a Windows True Type font converter, which will provide complete double-byte support when using international languages for creating charts and graphs.
Initial installation and setup of PopChart 4.0 was fairly easy and took about 10-15 minutes to install. I installed the program on a Pentium II Celeron 334 MHz Gateway Solo 9100 with 256 Mb RAM running NT 4.0 with Service Pack 6, and Internet Explorer 5.5. Once the CD-Rom was inserted into the drive, the program automatically prompted me with installation options. The installation wizard asked the basic installation questions, along with some specific questions for adding program groups to the desktop and start menu.
One handy feature of the installation routine is that it will install a PopChart version of the necessary JVM if you do not currently have JVM 1.3.1 or 1.2.2 already on your machine. The PopChart Builder needs JVM 1.3.1 and the Server program can user either JVM 1.2.2 or 1.3.1.
You have four configuration options to choose from when installing PopChart 4.0. The full installation installs ‘PopChart Server, builder, documentation, examples and development tools’. Most developers will most likely choose this option on their local machines. You can also install each piece individually enabling you to setup the proper desktop (developer) to server (publish) environment.
PopChart 4.0 is configured to work with Windows NT, 2000, XP, Linux and, most varieties of Unix.
For the best results, Corda recommends that charts be viewed in the latest browser available with support for Flash or SVG graphics to see the best image possible.
Once installed, I completed a quick example to familiarize myself with PopChart Builder. I was impressed with the ease-of-use and intuitiveness of the Builder wizard while completing the example. While the exercise took only about 15 minutes to complete, I felt the process was simple and easy to understand.
The Builder wizard does a good job of walking a user through the basic selection process of creating a simple to more complicated chart. Users have the ability to choose from a wide list of pre-built graphs, colors, chart borders, etc. Users can also change the data manually or paste in data from various external sources directly into the Builder.
I chose the basic template and modified the data manually instead of the option to copy and paste an excel spreadsheet into wizard. I’ll leave this task for a more complicated analysis at a later time. This initial example was just to quickly run-thru the Builder wizard to get my feet wet.
Once I saved my new chart, I quickly created the code that was needed to properly display the chart within my web page. PopChart Builder has built in sample code that is located within the applications menu structure so that users can see a basic web page for displaying charts in HTML, Java, or COM. Per the instructions, I chose Java as my underlying code of choice.
The sample code wizard allows users to pick from different web supported image types such as Flash, GIF, or SVG. It also has different scripting configurations depending on how you plan on building your web pages, such as Cold Fusion, JavaScript, or Serlvets. If a visitor does not support the image type that was selected when creating the web page, there is a convenient feature called “Use best image fallback” which will display the next best image supported by the web browser seamlessly to the user.
Once I finished making my selection I copied my sample code to the notepad to finish any necessary changes to the web page. If everything is set to the default file names, directories, etc., there should not be much for the user to change to complete the example. For more complicated chart displays, this is where users can add more dynamic data or special effects to the graph before sending it to the server for display.
Mario Butler-Del Rio is currently working for Catavo, Inc. as an e-Learning
consultant based in Wheaton, IL. Contact him directly at
mario.butlerdelrio@catavo.com or visit his company website at
www.catavo.com.
Last Modified
August 23, 2002
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