SimplePlot
SimplePlot is only of interest to programmers who wish to write their own Joomla! charting components. It is a very simple sample component that demonstrates Plotalot embedded into a custom Joomla! component front end. This page is displayed by SimplePlot.
Most people do NOT need to write a component to display the charts they need. Most requirements can be handled by the standard Plotalot component or plugin. However, if you need to add user selectable options, you may wish to write a custom component, and this sample may help you. Please note that writing a Joomla! component requires knowledge of programming, PHP, and the Joomla! API. The Plotalot User Guide fully documents how to embed Plotalot into your own code. Unfortunately, the Joomla API is not so well documented.
SimplePlot installs some sample data into a table called jos_plot_sample, and the code demonstrates how to retrieve a list of years from the table, construct a listbox, display the page, recover the user's selection, and draw a chart for the selected year. It is deliberately as simple as possible, to clearly demonstrate techniques to help you get started on building your own component.
Access to SimplePlot is included with the standard Plotalot package.
