Book Image

Google Visualization API Essentials

By : Traci Lynn Ruthkoski
Book Image

Google Visualization API Essentials

By: Traci Lynn Ruthkoski

Overview of this book

There's a lot of data in our world, and visual representations are often the best method of making sense of it all. Yet, it should not take an army of programmers and analysts to create visualizations in order to make data useful. The Google Visualization API is accessible to novice and advanced programmers alike, making data useful to more people."Google Visualization API Essentials" will show you how to create interactive data displays with very little code. The API, combined with Google Spreadsheets and Fusion Tables, is a complete system, from data management to analytical displays. Not only is it simple to learn, but the Google Visualization API can also be viewed as a first step to learning additional Google APIs."Google Visualization API Essentials" uses both methodology overviews and hands-on examples with real data to introduce chart and graph creation on the Google platform. Topics are presented from various aspects, including Google Spreadsheets and Fusion Tables, and Graphic User Interfaces. An overview of the various API development environments available to developers is also covered. Basic and advanced charts, data source connectivity, style formatting, and publishing options are also explored in depth."Google Visualization API Essentials" brings the arsenal of Google Visualizations into the web developer toolkit.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

Architecture


The overall structure of a visualization with controls has slight but definitive differences from a chart without controls. For charts with controls, the HTML framework encasing the visualization is slightly modified, as is the method of drawing the visualization with the API. The modified HTML framework is a good starting point to describe the architecture of a visualization with control components.

HTML framework

The HTML structure of a visualization with controls is similar to the standard HTML visualization framework, with a few distinct alterations. Dashboards require a few small changes to the HTML <body> section of the page. As with visualizations themselves, a <div id> must be designated for not only the chart, but also each of the Dashboard and control elements. An advantage to separately assigned <div id> tags is the Dashboard, control, and chart components that can be placed as desired in a page stylized with conventional HTML methods.

To start with...