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Posted to dev@geronimo.apache.org by "Erik B. Craig" <ec...@apache.org> on 2007/12/07 03:29:17 UTC
[DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
All,
Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which does
not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac, or on IE6
on Windows.
I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of Dojo
available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the monitoring client
over to the new version of Dojo, only to find that the new version of
dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of the old code base, leaving
out some features that I consider to be very visually pleasing and
important for statistics viewing. While rummaging through the Dojo
forums, I stumbled upon another Javascript graphing framework called
Timeplot, which is part of the SIMILE project at MIT, and while this has
it's own set of limitations... I'm trying to figure out the lesser of
three evils before it comes a time that this monitoring plugin will be
released, so that I have enough time (read: 3-5 days) to migrate the
javascript generation over to something new if necessary.
I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three options
graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some of the
advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the Timeplot
graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and therefore friendly I
believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY cool for showing multiple
data series in one chart.
--
Thanks,
Erik B. Craig
ecraig@apache.org
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Kevan Miller <ke...@gmail.com>.
On Dec 6, 2007, at 9:29 PM, Erik B. Craig wrote:
>
> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and therefore
> friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)...
K. License-wise, there's no problem with Timeplot. It's a straight BSD
license...
--kevan
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by "Erik B. Craig" <ec...@apache.org>.
On Dec 6, 2007, at 9:29 PM, Erik B. Craig wrote:
> All,
>
> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which
> does not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac,
> or on IE6 on Windows.
Errmmm, I stand corrected by myself, it looks like in 0.4.3 things are
working as expected on Mac... at least in Firefox and Safari on OS
10.5.1, my experimentation was done with Dojo 0.4.2 previously.
Internet Explorer is still hosed.
>
> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of
> Dojo available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the monitoring
> client over to the new version of Dojo, only to find that the new
> version of dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of the old code
> base, leaving out some features that I consider to be very visually
> pleasing and important for statistics viewing. While rummaging
> through the Dojo forums, I stumbled upon another Javascript graphing
> framework called Timeplot, which is part of the SIMILE project at
> MIT, and while this has it's own set of limitations... I'm trying to
> figure out the lesser of three evils before it comes a time that
> this monitoring plugin will be released, so that I have enough time
> (read: 3-5 days) to migrate the javascript generation over to
> something new if necessary.
>
> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three
> options graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some
> of the advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>
> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>
> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and therefore
> friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY cool for
> showing multiple data series in one chart.
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Erik B. Craig
> ecraig@apache.org
>
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Viet Nguyen <vh...@gmail.com>.
I agree with Joe. I think having the x/y axis labels are very
important, especially if we wish to allow the admin to customize these
graphs. It will be rather confusing without them (unless we can write
an extension for Simile to add this feature). Also, I like the curved
lines.
--Viet
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Anita Kulshreshtha <a_...@yahoo.com>.
--- Joe Bohn <jo...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> The mouse-over feature is cool ... but considering all things listed
> as
> advantages/disadvantages it seems to me that the dojo 0.4.3 comes out
>
> ahead for now. After timeplot has addressed the IE issue and x/y
> axis
> labels (with min/max) then it would be much more compelling to
> consider
> a change. Just my opinion based upon the very nice summary you
> provided.
I agree with Joe, that dojo 0.4.3 is the right candidate for now.
There is nothing obvious about the statistics. The y label with min,
max avg. is a necessity.
Thanks
Anita
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Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Joe Bohn <jo...@earthlink.net>.
Erik B. Craig wrote:
> All,
>
> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which does
> not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac, or on IE6
> on Windows.
> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of Dojo
> available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the monitoring client
> over to the new version of Dojo, only to find that the new version of
> dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of the old code base, leaving
> out some features that I consider to be very visually pleasing and
> important for statistics viewing. While rummaging through the Dojo
> forums, I stumbled upon another Javascript graphing framework called
> Timeplot, which is part of the SIMILE project at MIT, and while this has
> it's own set of limitations... I'm trying to figure out the lesser of
> three evils before it comes a time that this monitoring plugin will be
> released, so that I have enough time (read: 3-5 days) to migrate the
> javascript generation over to something new if necessary.
>
> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three options
> graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some of the
> advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>
> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>
> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the Timeplot
> graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and therefore friendly I
> believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY cool for showing multiple
> data series in one chart.
>
The mouse-over feature is cool ... but considering all things listed as
advantages/disadvantages it seems to me that the dojo 0.4.3 comes out
ahead for now. After timeplot has addressed the IE issue and x/y axis
labels (with min/max) then it would be much more compelling to consider
a change. Just my opinion based upon the very nice summary you provided.
Thanks,
Joe
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by David Jencks <da...@yahoo.com>.
+100 for simile.
IMO the curved lines in dojo 0.4.3 are really bogus and basically lie
about how much data you have. I'd recommend you not use them if
possible.
The mouse-over feature is very useful, you can easily read actual
numbers off the graph
multi-series display is pretty much essential IMO to get a reasonable
view of data on only one web page.
The multi-series display example you point to indicates the meaning
of each data series in text above the graph. How is this worse than
labelling the y-axis?
thanks
david jencks
On Dec 6, 2007, at 6:29 PM, Erik B. Craig wrote:
> All,
>
> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which
> does not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac,
> or on IE6 on Windows.
> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of
> Dojo available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the
> monitoring client over to the new version of Dojo, only to find
> that the new version of dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of
> the old code base, leaving out some features that I consider to be
> very visually pleasing and important for statistics viewing. While
> rummaging through the Dojo forums, I stumbled upon another
> Javascript graphing framework called Timeplot, which is part of the
> SIMILE project at MIT, and while this has it's own set of
> limitations... I'm trying to figure out the lesser of three evils
> before it comes a time that this monitoring plugin will be
> released, so that I have enough time (read: 3-5 days) to migrate
> the javascript generation over to something new if necessary.
>
> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three
> options graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some
> of the advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>
> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>
> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and
> therefore friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY
> cool for showing multiple data series in one chart.
>
> --
> Thanks,
> Erik B. Craig
> ecraig@apache.org
>
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Matt Hogstrom <ma...@hogstrom.org>.
On Dec 7, 2007, at 6:46 AM, John Sisson wrote:
>>
> IMHO, as much as I dislike saying this.. IE support should be
> mandatory considering the number of users who use it. The
> disadvantages of Dojo 1.0.1 sound pretty minor compared the other
> options not supporting browsers.
I think browser support should be primary consideration as well. I
think 1.0.1 is the best choice given the trade-offs.
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Joe Bohn <jo...@earthlink.net>.
I had an off-line discussion with Erik about IE support of the various
charting solutions. I *thought* Erik was saying that Dojo 0.4.3
charting works with IE, but just not always as expected. Actually, it
turns out that Dojo 0.4.3 charting does not work with IE at all (similar
to timeplot). That means that Dojo 1.0.1 charting is the only solution
that will support IE.
I agree with John & Paul that browser support on windows is important.
With this new understanding of IE support I'm now thinking Dojo 1.0.1
might be the better choice (even though I like the look and labels of
Dojo 0.4.3 better).
Joe
was under the impression that IE worked with
Paul McMahan wrote:
> I have to agree with John that browser and platform support is the most
> important factor. Furthermore, I think the ajax library in library in
> Geronimo should continue to be shared across its webapps. On both of
> these accounts I would lean heavily towards upgrading the monitoring
> client (and the admin console) to Dojo 1.0.1 since it has IE & Safari
> support and IMO is quickly becoming the open source ajax library of
> choice. I am excited about running the admin console on my ipod touch :-)
>
> Best wishes,
> Paul
>
> On Dec 7, 2007, at 6:46 AM, John Sisson wrote:
>
>> Erik B. Craig wrote:
>>> All,
>>>
>>> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which
>>> does not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac,
>>> or on IE6 on Windows.
>>> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of
>>> Dojo available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the monitoring
>>> client over to the new version of Dojo, only to find that the new
>>> version of dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of the old code
>>> base, leaving out some features that I consider to be very visually
>>> pleasing and important for statistics viewing. While rummaging
>>> through the Dojo forums, I stumbled upon another Javascript graphing
>>> framework called Timeplot, which is part of the SIMILE project at
>>> MIT, and while this has it's own set of limitations... I'm trying to
>>> figure out the lesser of three evils before it comes a time that this
>>> monitoring plugin will be released, so that I have enough time (read:
>>> 3-5 days) to migrate the javascript generation over to something new
>>> if necessary.
>>>
>>> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three
>>> options graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some
>>> of the advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
>>> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>>>
>>> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>>>
>>> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
>>> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and therefore
>>> friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY cool for
>>> showing multiple data series in one chart.
>>>
>> IMHO, as much as I dislike saying this.. IE support should be
>> mandatory considering the number of users who use it. The
>> disadvantages of Dojo 1.0.1 sound pretty minor compared the other
>> options not supporting browsers.
>>
>> Regards,
>> John
>
>
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Paul McMahan <pa...@gmail.com>.
I have to agree with John that browser and platform support is the
most important factor. Furthermore, I think the ajax library in
library in Geronimo should continue to be shared across its webapps.
On both of these accounts I would lean heavily towards upgrading the
monitoring client (and the admin console) to Dojo 1.0.1 since it has
IE & Safari support and IMO is quickly becoming the open source ajax
library of choice. I am excited about running the admin console on
my ipod touch :-)
Best wishes,
Paul
On Dec 7, 2007, at 6:46 AM, John Sisson wrote:
> Erik B. Craig wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting,
>> which does not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on
>> a mac, or on IE6 on Windows.
>> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of
>> Dojo available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the
>> monitoring client over to the new version of Dojo, only to find
>> that the new version of dojo appears to be a significant rewrite
>> of the old code base, leaving out some features that I consider to
>> be very visually pleasing and important for statistics viewing.
>> While rummaging through the Dojo forums, I stumbled upon another
>> Javascript graphing framework called Timeplot, which is part of
>> the SIMILE project at MIT, and while this has it's own set of
>> limitations... I'm trying to figure out the lesser of three evils
>> before it comes a time that this monitoring plugin will be
>> released, so that I have enough time (read: 3-5 days) to migrate
>> the javascript generation over to something new if necessary.
>>
>> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three
>> options graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing
>> some of the advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
>> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>>
>> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>>
>> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
>> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and
>> therefore friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY
>> cool for showing multiple data series in one chart.
>>
> IMHO, as much as I dislike saying this.. IE support should be
> mandatory considering the number of users who use it. The
> disadvantages of Dojo 1.0.1 sound pretty minor compared the other
> options not supporting browsers.
>
> Regards,
> John
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by John Sisson <jr...@gmail.com>.
Erik B. Craig wrote:
> All,
>
> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which
> does not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac, or
> on IE6 on Windows.
> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of Dojo
> available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the monitoring client
> over to the new version of Dojo, only to find that the new version of
> dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of the old code base, leaving
> out some features that I consider to be very visually pleasing and
> important for statistics viewing. While rummaging through the Dojo
> forums, I stumbled upon another Javascript graphing framework called
> Timeplot, which is part of the SIMILE project at MIT, and while this
> has it's own set of limitations... I'm trying to figure out the lesser
> of three evils before it comes a time that this monitoring plugin will
> be released, so that I have enough time (read: 3-5 days) to migrate
> the javascript generation over to something new if necessary.
>
> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three options
> graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some of the
> advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>
> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>
> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and therefore
> friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY cool for
> showing multiple data series in one chart.
>
IMHO, as much as I dislike saying this.. IE support should be mandatory
considering the number of users who use it. The disadvantages of Dojo
1.0.1 sound pretty minor compared the other options not supporting browsers.
Regards,
John
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by "Erik B. Craig" <ec...@apache.org>.
On Dec 6, 2007, at 10:35 PM, Kevan Miller wrote:
>
> On Dec 6, 2007, at 9:29 PM, Erik B. Craig wrote:
>
>> All,
>>
>> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which
>> does not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac,
>> or on IE6 on Windows.
>> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of
>> Dojo available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the
>> monitoring client over to the new version of Dojo, only to find
>> that the new version of dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of
>> the old code base, leaving out some features that I consider to be
>> very visually pleasing and important for statistics viewing. While
>> rummaging through the Dojo forums, I stumbled upon another
>> Javascript graphing framework called Timeplot, which is part of the
>> SIMILE project at MIT, and while this has it's own set of
>> limitations... I'm trying to figure out the lesser of three evils
>> before it comes a time that this monitoring plugin will be
>> released, so that I have enough time (read: 3-5 days) to migrate
>> the javascript generation over to something new if necessary.
>>
>> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three
>> options graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some
>> of the advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
>> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>>
>> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>>
>> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
>> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and
>> therefore friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY
>> cool for showing multiple data series in one chart.
>
> I'll take a look at the license info for Timeplot.
>
> However, if Timeplot doesn't work in IE, that's a severe
> disadvantage. Can you explain what doesn't work?
From what I understand as far as Timeplot goes, it's due to Timeplot
using 'Canvas' to do the rendering, which is not something that
Internet Explorer has support for, and they are looking to begin using
an open sourced google library called 'explorer canvas' to enable
internet explorer support in the next release
(reference here on their site: http://simile.mit.edu/wiki/Timeplot_Limitations
)
As far as current dojo (0.4.3) is concerned, from what i can tell -
any browser on a Mac will not draw any of the surrounding text on a
graph... at least as implemented in a portlet. (The Axis labels and
values are absent).
I have also been unable to get IE6 to draw the graphs in the current
portlet as implemented.
>
> --kevan
Thanks for taking a look at the license Kevan.
-Thanks,
Erik B. Craig
Re: [DISCUSS] Monitoring Client may need a new graphing engine
Posted by Kevan Miller <ke...@gmail.com>.
On Dec 6, 2007, at 9:29 PM, Erik B. Craig wrote:
> All,
>
> Currently the monitoring client is using Dojo 0.4.3 charting, which
> does not necessarily behave as expected on Firefox/Safari on a mac,
> or on IE6 on Windows.
> I consider this to be a shortcoming, and given the new version of
> Dojo available (1.0.1), began investigating migrating the monitoring
> client over to the new version of Dojo, only to find that the new
> version of dojo appears to be a significant rewrite of the old code
> base, leaving out some features that I consider to be very visually
> pleasing and important for statistics viewing. While rummaging
> through the Dojo forums, I stumbled upon another Javascript graphing
> framework called Timeplot, which is part of the SIMILE project at
> MIT, and while this has it's own set of limitations... I'm trying to
> figure out the lesser of three evils before it comes a time that
> this monitoring plugin will be released, so that I have enough time
> (read: 3-5 days) to migrate the javascript generation over to
> something new if necessary.
>
> I have created a small demonstration page that shows all three
> options graphed with the same data series, as well as weighing some
> of the advantages/disadvantages I could come up with,
> Please have a look, and let me know your thoughts.
>
> http://people.apache.org/~ecraig/graphdemo/
>
> Personally, I think it would be really cool if we could use the
> Timeplot graphing libraries, as it is all BSD licensed and therefore
> friendly I believe (right, Kevan?)... and also EXTREMELY cool for
> showing multiple data series in one chart.
I'll take a look at the license info for Timeplot.
However, if Timeplot doesn't work in IE, that's a severe disadvantage.
Can you explain what doesn't work?
--kevan