Foreword

Back in 2003, when I wanted to implement charts for my home page, Flash-based charting solutions were totally dominating the market. I resented the idea of meeting my nontechnical readers with a prompt to install a browser plugin just to view my content, so I went looking for other solutions. There were server-side libraries that produced a static chart image, but they didn't provide any form of interactivity. So I built a chart based on an image created dynamically on the server, overlaid with tool tips created in JavaScript. This still runs on my website and has survived the coming of the touch age without modification. But I still had an idea of something simpler. By 2006 all major browsers had support for vector graphics through either SVG or VML, so this seemed the way to go. I started working on Highcharts on weekends and vacations, and released it in 2009.

It was an instant success. Today, three years later, it has grown to become the preferred web charting engine by many, perhaps most, developers. Our bootstrapper company has nine persons working full time on developing, marketing, and selling Highcharts, and we have sold more than 22,000 licenses. Our clients include more than half of the 100 greatest companies in the world.

I was thrilled when Packt Publishing contacted me for reviewing this book. I soon realized that the author, Joe Kuan, has a tight grip on Highcharts, jQuery, and general JavaScript. He also does what I love the most to see from Highcharts users—he bends, tweaks, and configures the library, and creates charts that surpass what we even thought possible with our tool. All done step by step in increasingly complex examples.

I can't wait to recommend this book to our users.

Torstein Hønsi

CTO, Founder

Highsoft Solutions