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The Standards Way to Do Dynamic Data
thinkvitamin.com — Somewhere in between presenting static information graphics and complex, interactive data dashboards there's a need for a way to visualize moderately dynamic data on the web. Oftentimes the solutions you see implemented are clunky, for example, manually creating multiple frames of various data points and uploading them by hand.
dcconz- 534 diggs
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- dbulli, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Nice cool and simple ... very well done ...
- tmaiden, on 10/12/2007, -5/+1Wouldn't the title "Dynamic" put you under the impression that the data within the page should be pulled from a database. All I saw from this tutorial is just a way to setup a site template.
- OverloadUT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5All you have to do is pull a value from a database and put it in place of the 50% in this static version. That part he assumes you know how to do. What this tutorial explains how to do is to make an dynamic animating image with only CSS and javascript.
- kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Your dynamic values are passed in the javascript, this is just the shell that handles and displays the output.
- KragTheDigger, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2righto.. not even sure how 'standard' this standard is, but I'll digg for reference, and because I appreciate the effort of building something, and explaining how something works, rather than saying 'I include this 3rd party library over here, which I don't know how it works, and automagically things happen'.
~K - Error601, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0That doesn't seem very modular to me. I'd probably just have some code to generate an animated gif from the database. I tend to avoid all non-interactive animation anyway, as it's generally just annoying to the user.
- kevin45, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah, if this was 1997.
- Error601, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0If you have another opinion...how about some facts? That's what the "science" part of "computer science" is all about. Unless you want to sound like a smart ass little child.
- theblt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Unless you want to sound like a smart ass little child."
Wait a minute...
"If you have another opinion...how about some facts? That's what the "science" part of "computer science" is all about."
You sound like a little child to me. Speaking of facts, where are yours?
Current trends of the web suggest that since the average home desktop processing power is so great, that we as designers/developers should move towards taking advantage of that power. Why waste server CPU cycles generating new images every time our content changes when we can just leverage the users' already present processing power to accomplish the same thing?
- jlebrech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2One other improvement could be xmlhttp refreshing and loading data at a set interval within the animation, and updating on the fly.
That would be for a more active graph than a funds thermometer. - maestroh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2although i agree with the author when he says using flash in some cases is the equivalent of "hitting a fly with a sledgehammer".. i think he did the opposite here by not using flash. It's a simple animation. I don't know how many lines of code he wrote or how many images he diced up but it was way too many for a small task like this.
HOWEVER I understand the fact that he's trying to make a point about new ways css and javascript can be used together. I think this is a tandem thats got a LOT of potential for future development.. i really don't think we've even scratched the surface yet- Error601, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0There's not really any need to make that point. People have been writing about DHTML for quite a while. The problem is getting all the browsers to work the same.
- theblt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"he says using flash in some cases is the equivalent of "hitting a fly with a sledgehammer".. i think he did the opposite here"
He hit a sledgehammer with a fly??
I disagree. I'm all about smaller file sizes and limited use of proprietary technologies. Don't get me wrong, I'll try to use Flash whenever I can. But the small amount of code used to do this just makes more sense rather than a Flash document. There's just too many problems with Flash, such as the new "feature'...or IE6 where users have to "Click to activate" 's. Of course there are workarounds but it just goes to show that this stuff gets messy and in a situation such as this, simple Javascript animation makes sense.
- rgurganus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Just a personal beef on the terminology used here, "The Standards Way". Using CSS is *a* standard method, and perhaps the best standard method, but not the only standard method that exists. This terminology implies that anyone who uses other methods is not using standards, and this is simply not true. However bad or outdated they may be, if they abide by their own coding rules and structures, they are using standards.
- mookstah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well done, If the author's goal was "lets create a complex javascript/css element where we should have used flash because we're so cool"
- lslinnet, on 10/11/2007, -1/+0Author of the page is untrust worthy made a comment on his side that he deleted just because it stated that his title for the post was misleading!
- wen8213, on 11/26/2007, -0/+0Cool.
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