chart_fu is a charting library for Ruby with multiple backend support and easy, convention over configuration, data access.

== Examples

The simplest thing that could possibly work:

<%= chart_fu Post %>

Would give you a Google Chart with the number of posts created per day.

Adding a few more options:

<%= chart_fu Post, :title => "Posts Over Time", :from => 1.week.ago %>

chart_fu understands other Ruby data structures as well:

<%= chart_fu [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [5, 4, 3, 2, 1] %>

<%= chart_fu [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] %>

<%= chart_fu {"A" => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], "B" => [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]} %>

<%= chart_fu {Date.new(2008, 2, 1) => 1, Date.new(2008, 3, 1) => 5},
      :from => Date.new(2008, 1, 1), :to => Date.new(2008, 12, 31) %>

== Principles

chart_fu aims to be civil when collecting data and displaying charts, using sensible defaults that will create meaningful, pleasing, and readable output.

== Backends

chart_fu doesn't generate graphics on its own, but rather acts as a abstract frontend to whatever charting library you choose. This means only having to write charting code once and only once.

Support is planned for:

• Google Chart API (via http://gchartrb.rubyforge.org/) - default
• Flot (http://code.google.com/p/flot/)
• Gruff (http://nubyonrails.com/pages/gruff)
• Chart Director (http://www.advsofteng.com/)
• Open Flash Chart (http://teethgrinder.co.uk/open-flash-chart/)

== Inspiration

The inspiration for chart_fu came from the pain of switching charting libraries 3 times on lifemetric and spending way too much time trying to get simple charts done.