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Learn Chart.js
Learn Chart.js

Learn Chart.js: Create interactive visualizations for the Web with Chart.js 2

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Profile Icon Helder da Rocha
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4 (2 Ratings)
Paperback Feb 2019 284 pages 1st Edition
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Arrow left icon
Profile Icon Helder da Rocha
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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4 (2 Ratings)
Paperback Feb 2019 284 pages 1st Edition
eBook
NZ$14.99 NZ$38.99
Paperback
NZ$48.99
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eBook
NZ$14.99 NZ$38.99
Paperback
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Table of content icon View table of contents Preview book icon Preview Book

Learn Chart.js

Technology Fundamentals

This book assumes that you have a working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which are essential tools for creating visualizations with Chart.js. All examples in the book are written with JavaScript ES2015 or ES6. One of the goals of this chapter is to review the fundamental topics of these technologies. This includes JavaScript topics related to string, object, and array manipulation, the HTML document object model (DOM), basic JQuery, CSS selectors, and HTML canvas. You can, of course, skip these sections if you already feel comfortable with these technologies.

This chapter also describes popular data formats used in visualizations, such as CSV, XML, and JSON, and how to load, parse, and use external data files in these formats in your Web pages. You will also learn how to set up a small testing Web server to run files that load external resources...

Essential JavaScript for Chart.js

Client-side applications, such as interactive Web graphics, depend on browser support. This book assumes that your audience uses browsers that support HTML5 Canvas and ES2015 (which include all modern browsers). All examples use ES2015 syntax, including const and let instead of var, arrow functions where appropriate, spread operators, maps, sets, and promises. External files are loaded using the Fetch API, which has only been supported more recently, but you can easily switch to JQuery if necessary.

Although the creation of visualizations with Chart.js is mostly a declarative process, it is still a JavaScript library and requires basic knowledge of JavaScript. To create a simple chart, you need to know how to declare constants and variables, perform basic mathematical Boolean string and attribution operations, call and create functions, manipulate...

Other technologies

This section presents a brief summary of other technologies you should know about, covering their fundamental concepts. They include HTML DOM, JQuery, CSS, and HTML Canvas. You can skim or skip this section if you already know about and use these technologies. The next sections also provide code examples that can be downloaded from the GitHub repository for this chapter.

HTML Document Object Model(DOM)

The structure of an HTML document is normally described with tags, but it can also be specified using JavaScript commands with a Document Object Model (DOM): a language-neutral API that represents an HTML or XML document as a tree. Consider the following HTML document (Examples/example-1.html):

<html&gt...

Data formats

Data used in visualizations is usually distributed in a standard format that can be shared. Even when the data is served from a database, the data is usually delivered in some standard format. Popular proprietary formats, such as Excel spreadsheets, are common, but most statistical data is stored or delivered in CSV, XML, or JSON formats.

CSV

CSV stands for comma-separated values. It's a very popular data format for public data. A CSV file is a text file that emulates a table. It usually contains one header row with the names of the columns, and one or more data rows containing value fields. Rows are separated by line breaks, and the comma-separated fields in each row form columns. It maps perfectly to an...

Loading and parsing external data files  

Unless you have a very small or static dataset, it will usually not be embedded in your web page. You will probably use an asynchronous request to load it from a separate file after your HTML page is already loaded and then parse it. This section covers topics related to loading and parsing external files.

Using a Web server

Most of the examples in this book consist of a single file (not considering the external libraries loaded using the <script> tags), and you can run them by simply opening them in a browser. You don't even need a Web server. Just click on the file and view it in your browser. But this won't work in examples that load external files via...

Extracting and transforming data

If you are lucky enough to find your data in CSV, XML, or JSON, you can load it and start using it right away. But what if your data is only available as HTML tables, or worse, as a PDF file? In these cases, you need to extract your data and transform it into a usable format.

If it's a very simple HTML table, sometimes you can select it and copy and paste it into a spreadsheet and preserve the rows and columns. Then you can export it as a CSV. Sometimes you will need to do extra work, perhaps removing garbage characters, styles, and unnecessary columns. This is risky, since you may also lose data or introduce errors during the process.

Online tools

You can also use online tools that try...

Summary

This chapter provided a refresher on several fundamental technology concepts that will help you create visualizations with Chart.js. Even though Chart.js tries to hide all the underlying complexity from you, it is still a JavaScript library and basic knowledge of JavaScript, DOM, and CSS are important.

This chapter also described the main data formats used for statistical data: CSV, XML, and JSON. It also described how to load external files in these formats and how to parse them. Additionally, you learned some ways to obtain data not in these formats by extracting it from HTML pages.

In the next chapter, we will begin using Chart.js to create data visualizations.

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Key benefits

  • Harness the power of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to create interactive visualizations
  • Display quantitative information efficiently in the form of attractive charts by using Chart.js
  • A practical guide for creating data-driven applications using open-source JavaScript library

Description

Chart.js is a free, open-source data visualization library, maintained by an active community of developers in GitHub, where it rates as the second most popular data visualization library. If you want to quickly create responsive Web-based data visualizations for the Web, Chart.js is a great choice. This book guides the reader through dozens of practical examples, complete with code you can run and modify as you wish. It is a practical hands-on introduction to Chart.js. If you have basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript you can learn to create beautiful interactive Web Canvas-based visualizations for your data using Chart.js. This book will help you set up Chart.js in a Web page and show how to create each one of the eight Chart.js chart types. You will also learn how to configure most properties that override Chart’s default styles and behaviors. Practical applications of Chart.js are exemplified using real data files obtained from public data portals. You will learn how to load, parse, filter and select the data you wish to display from those files. You will also learn how to create visualizations that reveal patterns in the data. This book is based on Chart.js version 2.7.3 and ES2015 JavaScript. By the end of the book, you will be able to create beautiful, efficient and interactive data visualizations for the Web using Chart.js.

Who is this book for?

The ideal target audience of this book includes web developers and designers, data journalists, data scientists and artists who wish to create interactive data visualizations for the Web. Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript is required. No Canvas knowledge is necessary.

What you will learn

  • Learn how to create interactive and responsive data visualizations using Chart.js
  • Learn how to create Canvas-based graphics without Canvas programming
  • Create composite charts and configure animated data updates and transitions
  • Efficiently display quantitative information using bar and line charts, scatterplots, and pie charts
  • Learn how to load, parse, and filter external files in JSON and CSV formats
  • Understand the benefits of using a data visualization framework

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Publication date : Feb 28, 2019
Length: 284 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789342482
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Product Details

Publication date : Feb 28, 2019
Length: 284 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781789342482
Category :
Languages :
Tools :

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Table of Contents

8 Chapters
Introduction Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Technology Fundamentals Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Chart.js - Quick Start Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Creating Charts Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Scales and Grid Configuration Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Configuring Styles and Interactivity Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Advanced Chart.js Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

Rating distribution
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon 4
(2 Ratings)
5 star 50%
4 star 0%
3 star 50%
2 star 0%
1 star 0%
Marden Cicarelli Sep 10, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Um bom livro, com ótimas dicas da biblioteca Chart.js. O autor mostra vários exemplos e os discute, mostrando os pontos principais. Também faz uma rápida discussão dos fundamentos das tecnologias necessárias para aplicar a biblioteca na prática. Pena o valor do dólar, que encarece demais livros como esse, mas creio que vale a pena, se quiser investir além dos exemplos da página web do Chart.js.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Ann Foley Nov 29, 2019
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Empty star icon Empty star icon 3
The book seems good, but it states demo code is available from the publisher's website and it is not. Bummer.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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