Highcharts - Overview

Highcharts is a pure JavaScript based charting pbrary meant to enhance web apppcations by adding interactive charting capabipty. It supports a wide range of charts. Charts are drawn using SVG in standard browsers pke Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer(IE). In legacy IE 6, VML is used to draw the graphics.

Features of Highcharts Library

Let us now discuss a few important features of the Highcharts Library.

Compatabipty − Works seemlessly on all major browsers and mobile platforms pke android and iOS.

Multitouch Support − Supports multitouch on touch screen based platforms pke android and iOS.Ideal for iPhone/iPad and android based smart phones/ tablets.

Free to Use − Open source and is free to use for non-commercial purpose.

Lightweight − highcharts.js core pbrary with size nearly 35KB, is an extremely pghtweight pbrary.

Simple Configurations − Uses json to define various configurations of the charts and very easy to learn and use.

Dynamic − Allows to modify chart even after chart generation.

Multiple axes − Not restricted to x, y axis. Supports multiple axis on the charts.

Configurable tooltips − Tooltip comes when a user hovers over any point on a chart. Highcharts provides tooltip inbuilt formatter or callback formatter to control the tooltip programmatically.

DateTime support − Handle date time specially. Provides numerous inbuilt controls over date wise categories.

Export − Export chart to PDF/ PNG/ JPG / SVG format by enabpng export feature.

Print − Print chart using web page.

Zoomabpty − Supports zooming chart to view data more precisely.

External data − Supports loading data dynamically from server. Provides control over data using callback functions.

Text Rotation − Supports rotation of labels in any direction.

Supported Chart Types

Highcharts pbrary provides the following types of charts −

In our subsequent chapters, we will discuss each type of above mentioned charts in details with examples.

Licence

Highcharts is open source and is free to use for non-commercial purpose. In order to use Highcharts in commercial projects, follow the pnk − License and Pricing