There are several Alexa skills that include charts - CNBC's Alexa skill is even highlighting the fact that their integration with the Alexa Presentation Language (APL) allows users to view charts:
Now with APL integration, the CNBC skill can do more on your favorite Alexa devices. Visualize market movements with charts, see a market snapshot, watch the latest videos from CNBC, and more!
Yet I can find no documentation or code on Github on how to create such visualizations using the APL. Is CNBC using a beta feature of the APL that is not publicly available at this time?
Yes, as of now, APL is still in beta; and yes, skills with charts means that they are using the beta feature. However, beta is publicly available.
If you wish to build a skill with APL, you need to turn on the Alexa Presentation Language and Display Interface options in Interfaces in the Custom section for your skill in the Amazon Developer Console.
Secondly, APL supports only a set of components, at least for now. Of them, Image is one, which is the equivalent of HTML's img tag. Any visualisation item on the screen—graphs, charts, etc.—can only be and are therefore inherently Image. If you observe, such charts are not interactive, or if they are, then they would be wrapped in a TouchWrapper (onClick)—leading to another intent. So, they would have a routine batch converting charts into images.
As for building skills with APL, you have two options: one, you may use Alexa Developer Console's APL builder tool, which is also in beta. To access it, click on Display in the Custom pane. Once built, you can copy the UI's JSON into your source code; two, you can write the UI components directly in your source code pursuant to APL requirements. You may also build your own parser, if you're feeling adventurous.
Related
I am trying to build a Powerpoint Addin using the new JS-based stack that Microsoft has introduced. As part of the development, I am evaluating the support that the current JS libraries are providing. While VSTO/COM-based plugins have been around for quite some time, lack of cross-platform support is a challenge(especially for Mac and now Web), which is also the reason I want to opt for Web-based Addin(JS). But Powerpoint doesn't have a HOST API as Excel or Word does which makes things slightly challenging.
Thus here are the capabilities I want to have from the JS stack -
Ability to add and change the properties of shapes. While adding a shape doesn't have a specific API function, I was able to add it as an SVG object. Is there an easier way to change the properties of shapes and
Adding links to shapes to different slides.
Initiating other office apps like Excel and the ability to edit/read data from those instances.
Apply Slide Transitions.
Ability to connect other data resources through a URI.
Store state of shapes and slides.
It would be great if someone can point to the appropriate sections of the documentation which might help me find answers to this.
Most of what you are requesting cannot yet be done in a PowerPoint Web Add-in. But you can so some of it; for example, "connect to other data sources through a URI". I recommend that you look through the Develop section of the documentation.
I have a specific requirement for my GWT charting library. I need a library that supports a variety of graphs (bar, line, pie) and should have the ability to handle events from inside a chart (like clicking on a bar inside the bar graph - this would allow me to show extra information as a popup when its clicked).
I know that conventional wisdom states that its not possible without using Flash/Flex or a third-party embedded component but I am assuming that there would be a HTML5 charting library that would allow me to do it. I have tried to search but unsuccessfully. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
I am not a fan of FusionCharts. They have fancy charts but missed the market trend towards HTML5 and allowed Highchart to pick up charting market.
A good way to analyze is to pick up Fusion Charts competition as starting point and then list out your parameters.The below link is heavy duty marketing. Use it only to know what Fusion Chart' competitors are.
http://www.fusioncharts.com/success-stories/competition-and-us/
The rest of the content on the above link is more of marketing bs.
Google Charts support all that, AFAIK.
Or is that answer too obvious ?
And there is a GWT wrapper available.
I'm looking for a stand-alone Pie Chart which I can use in a GWT application. The Chart should be interactive, so that I can react on user input (read mouse clicks on the chart).
I've already looked at Google Chart Tools with GWT Visualization. This is exactly what I want. A simple to use PieChart class with user interaction and a simple and comprehensive data input. Except that the data is transfered to Google for the rendering part. The data should not leave the client or our server.
Have you tried Fusion Charts? Here's the Pie Chart showcase. Its a Flash object hence you will need to use JSNI to embed the object into your widget or use a library like GWT2SWF to do it for you.
I have used Fusion Charts + GWT2SWF combination in one of my products, and would recommend it to anyone looking for a interactive flash charting tool (outside of google's toolset)
A colleague of mine found following library: GChart. Rather then using Flash we'll try to draw our own. Not sure how easy this will be.
You mentioned:
"The Data should not leave the server"
With Google visualization APIs (as opposed to the chart apis) the data remains on your server, only the code is downloaded from google.
However, if you meant that you shouldnt need access to google at all, then GCharts is the only remaining and a pretty good option.
Check out GWT-RCharts hosted on http://code.google.com/p/gwt-rcharts/ . It is stand alone i.e doesn't have external dependency like Visualization. The API works on SVG/VML specification so no plugin dependency. You may find it quite easy to install, implement and use. You can find the demo at http://gwt-rcharts.appspot.com/
I am chewing through a specification for an iPhone Web App (NOT native). The request implies a lot of general charting functionality, mostly line chart and bar charts. On the implementation side of things, it means a lot of re-formatting of existing web content using an iPhone Web App framework (most likely JQTouch).
Given the capabilities of the device browser, is there a specific charting library you'd recommend, which runs acceptably on the mobile Safari with reasonable overhead?
We are interested in the following charting functionality:
Line and bar series
Legend display on chart area or outside
Dynamic series support (e.g. show/hide series)
Dynamic series creation in JS
I have looked at Flot so far.
The free and excellent Google Chart Tools lets you create both static image charts and interactive (javascript) charts.
They look quite nice:
There are several jQuery based plugins for that (including Flot):
http://www.reynoldsftw.com/2009/02/6-jquery-chart-plugins-reviewed/
And the Filament Group has a nice one as well:
http://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/update_to_jquery_visualize_accessible_charts_with_html5_from_designing_with/
I've used the latter though we eventually scrapped it when we realized we only needed bar graphs and it was easier to just roll-our-own simple implementation using a bit of jQuery animation and some divs.
I'm looking to build an interactive web-based org chart for a large organization. I somewhat like the interface at ancestry.com where you can hover over people and pan/zoom around and click on different nodes to make them the root.
Ideally, I'd like it if people could belong to multiple organizational entities like committees, working groups, etc. In other words the API should support graphs in general, not just trees.
I'd like to be able to visually explode each organizational substructure into substituents by clicking on it, with a nice animation of the employees ballooning or spilling out so you can really interactively drill down through the organization.
I found http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/orgchart.html but it looks a bit rudimentary.
I know there are desktop tools like OrgPlus and Visio that can build static charts but I'm really looking for a free, web-based API with open standards-based output like SVG or HTML5 Canvas elements rather than Flash or some proprietary output. Something I can embed into a custom web application and style myself. Something interactive.
Check my solution on github: OrgChart.svg This is a modern full SVG orgchart with support of custom styling, tip-over / stacking possibility in the best known form. I would be very happy if it helps someone. It is based on snap.svg.
I ended up using the SpaceTree API from the Javascript InfoVis Toolkit to build my org chart:
http://philogb.github.com/jit/static/v20/Docs/files/Visualizations/Spacetree-js.html
I've had a go at building this in d3.js. It was originally built for data pulled from Yammer but now it will work with any csv - like this one.
Here's the repo and here's a demo. You will need to know a little html/javascript to customise it for your application.
There is this one for asp.net but I have only ever added it to my bookmarks so I can't vouch for how standards compliant it is:
http://www.orgchartcomponent.com/
Something you should also consider when you are looking in to this is your charting requirements. Many org charts only support a single top node. If you wanted to map a family tree for example then this might not be the case.