Extension:VizExpress

Introduction
Tables and Graphs are effective visualizations for presenting data. However, generating them in wiki pages requires time, effort, and complicated syntax. This becomes more problematic if you have large sets of data, or if you want more customized visualizations. Hence, we decided to make vizExpress.

vizExpress is a Mediawiki extensions that allows users to create highly customized tables and graphs quickly and easily. vizExpress features a simple, excel-like wizard that can be accessed through a button in the editing toolbar. When you start the vizExpress wizard, you can:


 * Provide data by typing it, copying and pasting it from another source, or by browsing to an existing Excel or CSV file.
 * Choose one of eight graph types.
 * Choose one of seven pre-defined color schemes, or simply make your own scheme.
 * Apply further options such as titles, graph size, legend position, etc..
 * Preview the graph before inserting it.

Once you have the graph in your wiki page, you can:
 * Allow users to download the graph data as a csv file.
 * Edit the graph easily by restarting the wizard again.

You can visit this page to see examples of graphs created by vizExpress.

Installation

 * 1) Download vizExpress and extract it to *your MediaWiki installation directory*/extensions.
 * 2) Add the following to LocalSettings.php:

Compatibility
vizExpress was tested on:
 * Firefox 3.5
 * Internet Explorer 8
 * Safari 4
 * Opera 9
 * Google Chrome 2

API
 name:data.csv; type:ColumnChart; colors:blue; cstmScheme:#82B61A,#B5E15E,#DEFCA1,#C8Ef7B,#82B61A,#D9FC97,#A3D147,#93C52f; transpose:false; label:false; export:true; title:; titleX:; titleY:; width:400; height:240; min:0; max:; legend:right; fileData:; textareaData:a,b,c,d,e 1,2,3,4,5 Here's what each line means: name: The name of the CSV file that contains the raw data which users can download. It's set to by default to the name of the file you upload, or data.csv if you provide data through the text area.
 * After providing data and selecting options, vizExpress wizard generates a tag of the following form:

type: The graph type. Could be one of eight: AreaChart, BarChart, ColumnChart, LineChart, PieChart, ScatterChart, PilesOfMoney, Table.

colors: The graph color scheme. Could be one of eight: default, grey, red, blue, green, orange, purple, custom.

cstmScheme: A list of eight hex colors to be used as a custom color scheme. Each color represents a column, bar, line, or slice.

label: This must be set to true if the first column is not numeric or if you want to use first column entries as x-axis labels.

export: Whether or not users can download the graph raw data.

title: The graph title.

titleX: The x-axis title.

titleY: The y-axis title.

width: The graph width.

height: The graph height.

min: The lowest Y axis grid line. The actual grid line will be the lower of two values: the min option value, or the lowest data value, rounded down to the next lower grid mark.

max: The highest Y axis grid line. The actual grid line will be the greater of two values: the max option value, or the highest data value, rounded up to the next higher grid mark.

legend: The legend position. Could be one of five: left, right, top, bottom, none.

fileData: The data provided from uploading a file.

textareaData: The data provided in the wizard textarea.


 * Each vizExpress tag has a unique id of the form id=2009.08.17.20.58.234. If you accidentally delete it, you can replace it with any other value that is not used by another vizExpress tag in the same page.

Screen Casts
COMING SOON