brucemarchu@aol.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to locate some commercial off the shelf reporting packages that work with an Informix database [Informix on IRIX] that would:
>
> * Display selected information with detailed bar charts / pie charts with multiple views into the data based on discriminators like users, priority, etc
>
> * Multiple libraries will push this information in a format for a web page. The data will be static for a given point in time but will have the various views into the data (meaning many different web pages)
>
> * Various library sites will need to grab the information from their own statistical database (Informix in IRIX), create the graphic pages, and then push the pages to a single site.
>
> Have you used any reporting packages that grab the data and make the cool web pages, or do you know of any packages? Any product information, experiences [either good or bad], suggestions, and company/product URL's would be greatly appreciated. The reporting package does not necessarily need to run on SGI-IRIX, but would need to connect to an Informix database on SGI-IRIX.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Bruce Marchu
> sending to informix-list


You might check out Fusion Charts:

http://www.infosoftglobal.com/FusionCharts/

They have a series of Flash-based charts that take in XML data
and produce a really nice set of different charts, either for the
web, or whatever, and yes, you could use them in Perl/CGI
scripts or PHP code or whatever. All you're really doing is
presenting them in HTML documents or whatever output format you
prefer. But it's nice because it is non-invasive in your system,
which means if you find something better, it's easier to switch.
They're just FLASH objects that take XML data as arguments. They
are indeed animated too.

Fusion Charts allow you to try their software for free, and you can use
them indefinitely without paying for them, only catch is, they just show
their name on all the charts if you don't pay for it. But you can develop
and try for free, which is nice. I tried a whole bunch of different chart
packages and came back to this one because it's got just about every chart
I needed, and it was easy to use. No compiling, libs, nothing, just start
using them. They sit in a directory waiting to be used.