highcharts

What is highcharts?

The highcharts npm package is a charting library that allows developers to create interactive and responsive charts for web applications. It supports a wide range of chart types and features, including line, area, bar, pie, scatter, and more complex types like stock, maps, and Gantt charts. Highcharts is designed to work across all modern browsers and is compatible with various frameworks and platforms.

What are highcharts's main functionalities?

Line Charts

This code sample demonstrates how to create a basic line chart using Highcharts, showing the growth of solar employment in various sectors over time.

{"title": {"text": 'Solar Employment Growth by Sector, 2010-2016'},"subtitle": {"text": 'Source: thesolarfoundation.com'},"yAxis": {"title": {"text": 'Number of Employees'}},"legend": {"layout": 'vertical',"align": 'right',"verticalAlign": 'middle'},"plotOptions": {"series": {"label": {"connectorAllowed": false},"pointStart": 2010}},"series": [{"name": 'Installation',"data": [43934, 52503, 57177, 69658, 97031, 119931, 137133, 154175]},{"name": 'Manufacturing',"data": [24916, 24064, 29742, 29851, 32490, 30282, 38121, 40434]},{"name": 'Sales & Distribution',"data": [11744, 17722, 16005, 19771, 20185, 24377, 32147, 39387]},{"name": 'Project Development',"data": [null, null, 7988, 12169, 15112, 22452, 34400, 34227]},{"name": 'Other',"data": [12908, 5948, 8105, 11248, 8989, 11816, 18274, 18111]}],"responsive": {"rules": [{"condition": {"maxWidth": 500},"chartOptions": {"legend": {"layout": 'horizontal',"align": 'center',"verticalAlign": 'bottom'}}}]}}

Pie Charts

This code sample shows how to create an interactive pie chart with Highcharts, displaying browser market shares with options for selecting and slicing portions of the pie.

{"chart": {"plotBackgroundColor": null,"plotBorderWidth": null,"plotShadow": false,"type": 'pie'},"title": {"text": 'Browser market shares in January, 2018'},"tooltip": {"pointFormat": '{series.name}: <b>{point.percentage:.1f}%</b>'},"accessibility": {"point": {"valueSuffix": '%'}},"plotOptions": {"pie": {"allowPointSelect": true,"cursor": 'pointer',"dataLabels": {"enabled": true,"format": '<b>{point.name}</b>: {point.percentage:.1f} %'}}},"series": [{"name": 'Brands',"colorByPoint": true,"data": [{"name": 'Chrome',"y": 61.41,"sliced": true,"selected": true},{"name": 'Internet Explorer',"y": 11.84},{"name": 'Firefox',"y": 10.85},{"name": 'Edge',"y": 4.67},{"name": 'Safari',"y": 4.18},{"name": 'Other',"y": 7.05}]}]}

3D Charts

This code sample illustrates how to create a 3D column chart using Highcharts, which adds a new dimension to the data visualization for better analysis and presentation.

{"chart": {"type": 'column',"options3d": {"enabled": true,"alpha": 15,"beta": 15,"viewDistance": 25,"depth": 40}},"title": {"text": 'Total fruit consumption, grouped by gender'},"plotOptions": {"column": {"depth": 25}},"series": [{"name": 'John',"data": [2, 3, 0, 4, 5]},{"name": 'Joe',"data": [1, 1, 4, 7, 2]}]}

Other packages similar to highcharts

chart.js

Chart.js is a popular open-source charting library that is lightweight and offers a simple API. It supports eight chart types, including line, bar, radar, doughnut, pie, polar area, bubble, and scatter. Compared to Highcharts, Chart.js is more focused on simplicity and ease of use, but it may not offer as many features or as much flexibility for complex visualizations.

d3

D3.js is a powerful and flexible library for creating custom data visualizations using web standards. It provides a low-level approach, giving developers more control over the final visualization. While Highcharts offers a high-level API for creating standard chart types easily, D3.js requires more coding but allows for more unique and intricate visualizations.

echarts

ECharts is an open-source charting library that offers a rich set of chart types and options. It is capable of producing interactive and complex charts and maps. ECharts is similar to Highcharts in terms of functionality but is known for its strong support for mobile devices and ease of integration with the Baidu Map service.

amcharts

amCharts is a comprehensive charting library that provides a wide array of chart types and features, including 3D charts, gauge charts, and timelines. It is comparable to Highcharts in terms of its feature set and is known for its user-friendly interface and extensive documentation. However, amCharts uses a different licensing model, which may be a consideration for some projects.

README

Highcharts

Highcharts for node.js is a WebServer module that runs on localhost and renders typical Highcharts graphs into base64 PNG strings.

All contributions are welcome.

Simple API

Class: Highcharts

Highcharts has the following methods.

new Highcharts(port)

• port Number. Port to bind webserver to localhost.

Constructor for creating a Highcharts web server instance.

render(imgOptions, chartOptions, callback)

• imgOptions Object. Rendered image options.
• chartOptions Object. General Highcharts options.
• callback Function. The callback has argument (base64png), a base64 PNG data string.

Example Usage

var Highcharts = require('highcharts');
var server = new Highcharts(3003);

var chartOptions = {
  title: {
    text: 'Monthly Average Temperature',
    x: -20 //center
  },
  subtitle: {
    text: 'Source: WorldClimate.com',
    x: -20
  },
  xAxis: {
    categories: ['Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec']
  },
  yAxis: {
    title: {
      text: 'Temperature (C)'
    },
    plotLines: [{
      value: 0,
      width: 1,
      color: '#808080'
    }]
  },
  tooltip: {
    valueSuffix: 'C'
  },
  legend: {
    layout: 'vertical',
    align: 'right',
    verticalAlign: 'middle',
    borderWidth: 0
  },
  series: [
		{
	    name: 'Tokyo',
	    data: [7.0, 6.9, 9.5, 14.5, 18.2, 21.5, 25.2, 26.5, 23.3, 18.3, 13.9, 9.6]
	  },
		{
      name: 'New York',
      data: [-0.2, 0.8, 5.7, 11.3, 17.0, 22.0, 24.8, 24.1, 20.1, 14.1, 8.6, 2.5]
	  },
		{
      name: 'Berlin',
      data: [-0.9, 0.6, 3.5, 8.4, 13.5, 17.0, 18.6, 17.9, 14.3, 9.0, 3.9, 1.0]
	  },
		{
      name: 'London',
      data: [3.9, 4.2, 5.7, 8.5, 11.9, 15.2, 17.0, 16.6, 14.2, 10.3, 6.6, 4.8]
	  }
	]
};

var imgOptions = {
	width: 640,
	scale: 2
};

function generateImgTag(base64png) {
	// returns HTML5 img tag with data uri
	return '<img src="data:image/png;base64,' + base64png + '" alt="Monthly Average Temperature" />';
}

server.render(imgOptions, chartOptions, generateImgTag);

Installation

npm install highcharts

License

(The MIT License)

Copyright (c) frisB.com <[e-mail]>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.