Simple Graph

Description

Draws a graph of single set of date related data. Graph can be made public (i.e. sidebar widget or static page) and the data can be manipulated through dashboard. Many people use this plugin for weight tracking on their blogs (as do I), but it has been used for many other things as well. Only requirement – or rather a constraint – is that the horizontal axis of the graph shows dates. The vertical axis can hold any values. Each user can have their own graphs, which can be easily inserted in posts and pages.

Content filter

If you want to insert a graph in posts and/or pages, simply write a string similar to following in your post or page.

[[simple-graph n=1 x=0 y=0 trend=0 wkly=0 lm=0 ytd=0 uid=0 gid=0 ]]

Just replace the values as you wish. The ones above are default values, and if you don’t need to change the default value, you can simply omit that value from the string. I.e. [[simple-graph]] alone produces the graph with default values drawn from widget setup.

• n is number of widget options, from where default options (such as colours) are drawn
• x is width, any positive value is acceptable
• y is height, any positive value is acceptable
• trend is whether trend graph is shown, 0 = no, 1 = yes
• wkly is whether weekly averages are shown, 0 = no, 1 = yes
• lm is whether only values from last month are shown, 0 = no, 1 = yes
• ytd is whether only values from last year are shown, 0 = no, 1 = yes
• uid is user ID of the graph owner (see WordPress dashboard -> Users)
• gid is user-specific graph number, same as in widget control panel’s graph# selection

Screenshots

Installation

IMPORTANT! When upgrading from versions earlier than 1.0.0, please deactivate the plugin before copying the new files and activate it again after the files are in place. The database tables have changed, so this is vital!

Requires that your PHP installation has GD support enabled. The plugin’s configuration page shows information on this.

First of all, backup your WordPress files and database! Installation of this plugin shouldn’t do any harm, but since I’ve done absolutely no testing besides using it on my WP 2.0.3 platform, I cannot guarantee it’s entirely bug free. Also, this is my first ever WP plugin, which I created both for fun and to learn the art of making plugins. So, this plugin is provided AS IS, and installation and usage of this plugin is entirely at your own risk. I will not assume any responsibility for any possible damages. (Although it still isn’t supposed to cause any damages.)

Extract the zip archive in your WordPress plugins folder (wp-content/plugins/) and then activate the plugin through your WordPress dashboard. The activation sets up initial configuration options and creates the database table for the plugin data.

Please make sure that you upload/extract the simple-graph folder entirely in your plugin folder, and not just the contents of it! Your folder structure should look like this:

* wp-content/plugins/
      o simple-graph/
            + pjm_graph.php
            + grapher/
                  # graph.php

Finally, insert a code similar to the one below to your WordPress theme, for example in the sidebar.php file. The essential part is calling the pjm_graph() function. Note! If you are using widgets, of course you don’t need to edit any files.

<?php if (function_exists('pjm_graph')) { ?>
<li><h2>The Project</h2>
<?php pjm_graph(); ?><br />
<a >About this graph plugin
</a>
</li>
<?php } ?>

Installation is now complete!

There are some parameters to that function though, so if you want to make your graph look different, you might want to check these out.

You can override width and height of the graph with function parameters. Also, as of v0.9.3 it is possible to add optional trend graph with a boolean flag. In version 0.9.6 further parameters (target, ytd, lm, and wkly) were added. See the function declaration below.

void pjm_graph($NUM, $WIDTH, $HEIGHT, $TREND, $TARGET, $YTD, $MTD, $WKLY, $UID, $GID, $ONLY_RETURN_TAG);

Zero (0) values for WIDTH and HEIGHT preserve the default width and height that are specified in the admin panel. Any other values override the default.

TREND, TARGET, YTD, MTD and WKLY parameters expect a boolean value, which is either TRUE or FALSE. By default they’re all FALSE. If TREND is TRUE, gliding trend graph appears. If YTD is TRUE, only the values from last year are used in the graph. If MTD is TRUE, only the values from last month are used. (If YTD is TRUE, value of MTD is irrelevant.) If WKLY is TRUE, rough weekly average values will be calculated instead of daily values where possible. TARGET is not fully implemented yet and thus its value has no meaning at the moment.

NUM specifies which of different widget options are used for default settings. UID and GID specify which user (user ID) and which graph (user-specific ID) is taken from database. For each of these, value 1 is the default.

Finally, ONLY_RETURN_TAG is a boolean; if TRUE, the IMG tag is only returned from function, not printed; if FALSE, it’s both returned and echoed; FALSE is default.

FAQ

How about multiple graphs?

If a 1.0 release is ever finished, it will support multiple graphs. However, don’t hold your breath.

Reviews

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

1.0.5

• Added basic Google Chart API support for rendering the widget graph. The graph looks better, but there’s a limit to amount of values shown due to URL length limitations. Currently weekly averages is forced to reduce number of values. If graph doesn’t show, try disabling the trend graph, which effectively reduces the value count to half. If the graph is still empty or doesn’t show up at all, disable Google Chart API support from widget control pane. It’s disabled by default. Note that some widget options are not used at this time when Google Chart API is enabled. This will be fixed in the future.

1.0.4

• Fixed version numbering. ??

1.0.3

• Fixed widget not showing when PHP register_globals was on.

1.0.2

• Fixed widget customization bug. (Control panel changes did not affect the widgets.)

1.0.1

• Fixed activation bug which occurred in a rare situation.

1.0.0

• Added multiple widgets support.
• Added multiple user-sensitive graphs, i.e. each user may have their own graphs. Each user can also see and edit only his/her graph.
• Added content filter which allows insertion of graphs to pages and posts.

0.9.8c

• Fixed user roles issue, which broke the plugin in WordPress 2.2.

0.9.8b

• Fixed broken graph image for sites that use different site and WordPress addresses.

0.9.8

• Added configurable title and text to widget. Both can contain wildcards which are replaced by values such as highest value, lowest value, et cetera.
• Extended widget control panel significantly.
• Removed old plugin configuration page as it was redundant.
• Bug fix: plugin now works even if plugin folder name is changed.