Server-side only PDF/image export

[mathie]

What I am looking for is: the ability for the server to automatically send email reports daily with charts, with no user/human-interaction. Is it possible?

 

 

 

From: http://www.fusioncharts.com/docs/

 

Export charts as images (JPEG, PNG) or PDFs at client-side or server-side. In either case, the chart first needs to render in browser. You cannot directly export the chart as images/PDFs on server until the chart has rendered in browser.

 

 

 

Does it mean 100% server-side export is not possible? If so, what is the technical problem? Any plan to address this?

Edited March 3, 2009 by Guest

[FusionCharts Support]

Hi,

 

 

 

FusionCharts is a Flash Component, which is a client side component.

 

 

 

A chart is not rendered as image, but as a flash animation by the Flash engine at client side.

 

 

 

The next step to export is to collect the image data( rather snapshot) of the chart and send the image data to the server to process it.

[johnstontrav]

This is exactly what I would like aswell. 100% server export to PDF, no human (client) interaction.

 

 

 

Anyone got a solution?

[Rahul Kumar]

Hi,

 

You would need to capture FC_Rendered() event and in that event place your code to export the chart image into pdf at server side without user interaction.

 

Please refer to:

 

1. http://www.fusioncharts.com/docs/Contents/JS_Events.html

2. http://www.fusioncharts.com/docs/Contents/ECServerSave.html

3. And also http://www.fusioncharts.com/docs -> Exporting as Image/PDF section.

 

Please also note that you would required to use our latest v3.1 chart to achieve this feature.

[johnstontrav]

Hi,

 

 

 

Thanks for your reply.

 

 

 

I don't think your solution will work (happy to be proven wrong though!). I think we are getting lost in explaining what we need. I will give you an example.

 

 

 

What I need:

 

----------------

 

I need a monthly report emailed to 10 people. Within each email there will be about 15 PDF reports attached. Within each PDF there will be several charts.

 

 

 

What I want from Fusion Charts:

 

---------------------------------

 

At the end of the month a bash (or php or perl or whatever) script is run from cron (Linux OS - no GUI or browser installed, just a terminal) which will create all the PDF's and then send to users. There is no client interaction at ALL. The reporting server which runs this script is remote. Something like this would be great...

 

 

 

linux-terminal: /usr/bin/php FC_createServerChart.php data.xml > mySavedChart.png

 

 

 

Now that I have explained myself better, do you know of a solution? Maybe I have misread your previous solution?

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Trav.

Edited March 26, 2009 by Guest

[Rahul Kumar]

Hi,

 

I am afraid, it is not possible, since FusionCharts is a flash component which requires browser to be rendered at client side.

[Pete_1980]

How???

 

I've been reading requests upon requests for explanations on how this can be done, and all I seem to see is very vague answers from staff / admin people.

 

Few simple questions:

 

1) Can a chart be generated on the fly, without human interaction, which automatically saves to JPG or PNG. It is clear that users of FusionCharts would like to be able to do 'batch processing' of charts. I have a requirement which needs about 500+ charts to be saved and distributed. A manual process of doing this one chart at a time within a web browser is not going to work.

 

2) If Yes - how? Full example would be very useful!

 

 

 

Hi,

 

 

 

FusionCharts is a Flash Component, which is a client side component.

 

 

 

A chart is not rendered as image, but as a flash animation by the Flash engine at client side.

 

 

 

The next step to export is to collect the image data( rather snapshot) of the chart and send the image data to the server to process it.

[SteveC]

Hi Pete,

 

I'm not sure if you've obtained a complete answer to this post or not. I was able to get FusionChart's assistance with their ServerSaveImage .NET DLL wrappers. Their .NET files allowed me to write a .NET console application that runs twice a day and exports over 700+ charts each time without user intervention once the Scheduled Task has been created to run the console application.

 

This is working very well for us. I had to create the console application to construct the Chart XML settings dynamically for each of our charts but it is only taking about 30 minutes to "generate" 700+ charts on our server which are then consumed by another application that includes the chart .png files into a Powerpoint slide document and then saved to either a Powerpoint presentation or a PDF document.

 

If you search the FusionChart's websites for "ServerSaveImage" there is a link identifying how to obtain a copy of their .NET DLL wrappers.

 

Hope this helps.

Steve

 

How???

 

I've been reading requests upon requests for explanations on how this can be done, and all I seem to see is very vague answers from staff / admin people.

 

Few simple questions:

 

1) Can a chart be generated on the fly, without human interaction, which automatically saves to JPG or PNG. It is clear that users of FusionCharts would like to be able to do 'batch processing' of charts. I have a requirement which needs about 500+ charts to be saved and distributed. A manual process of doing this one chart at a time within a web browser is not going to work.

 

2) If Yes - how? Full example would be very useful!

 

 

 

 

[Sanjukta]

Hey Steve,

 

This piece of information was greatly helpful.

 

Thank you so much for your continued support.

 

Cheers!!

 

Happy FusionCharting!

[Glenn]

I thought I would try to clarify what I think I am reading here.

You can ONLY use FusionMaps at the browser and NOT at the server. Except for a custom built tool that allows some functionality at the server but only for .NET applications.

 

Is this basically true?

 

I have a website using FusionCharts and FusionMaps. A user has the ability to select from a number of options and build a customized report that includes charts and text. If they do a print page it does print the charts (I discovered print manager) but it is nearly impossible to end up with anything on the hard copy that resembles what is displayed on the page. Therefore, in past applications I have created a second module that generates a very similar report in the form of a PDF that the user can then download, print, save, etc, etc. The PDF is generated exclusively at the server and then downloaded by the user. In order to include a chart I MUST be able to generate an image of that chart and physically add it to the PDF file as it is being generated.

 

My application is a J2EE application. I would need to be able to generate the chart images and capture the image in the java where the PDF is generated.

 

If this is not available in FusionCharts I guess I'll have to get back in search mode and find a different provider.

[Glenn]

The export process is an interesting, but clewdgy, option for what I need to do, since the user is sitting there with the charts already rendered. However, on the webpage I am using scroll charts,which would not be practical for use in a PDF. So it appears the potential solution would be to generate the chart(s) that would be used ONLY for the PDF in a hidden division. Then when the user clicks on the PDF button it would have to be an AJAX submit. In the AJAX code it would have to call the export functions for each chart involved and send them to the server before allowing the submit to be processed. My preference would be to send them directly to the servlet that will be generating the PDF instead of adding them to the file system. The question is, is this possible? Or is the use of the ExportHandler servlet mandatory to make this work?