Rickshaw

Rickshaw is a JavaScript toolkit for creating interactive time series graphs, developed at Shutterstock

Getting Started

Getting started with a simple graph is straightforward. Here's the gist:

var graph = new Rickshaw.Graph( {
  element: document.querySelector('#graph'),
  series: [
    {
      color: 'steelblue',
      data: [ { x: 0, y: 23}, { x: 1, y: 15 }, { x: 2, y: 79 } ],
    }, {
      color: 'lightblue',
      data: [ { x: 0, y: 30}, { x: 1, y: 20 }, { x: 2, y: 64 } ],
    }
  ]
} );

graph.render();

See the tutorial and examples for more.

Rickshaw.Graph

properties

• element: a reference to an HTML element

• series: an array of objects each with the following properties

  • name: a name meant for humans
  • color: a CSS color
  • data: an array of objects, each with x and y properties

• renderer: renderer name. Currently available options:

  • 'area'
  • 'bar'
  • 'line'
  • 'scatterplot'
  • 'stack'

• width: width of the graph in pixels

• height: height of graph in pixels

• min: Lower value on the Y-axis, or 'auto' for the lowest value in the series. Defaults to 0.

• max: Highest value on the Y-axis. Defaults to the highest value in the series.

• interpolation: optional line smoothing / interpolation method (see D3 docs); notable options:

  • 'linear': straight lines between points
  • 'step-after': square steps from point to point
  • 'cardinal': smooth curves via cardinal splines (default)
  • 'basis': smooth curves via B-splines

methods

• render(): paint the graph

• registerRenderer(renderer): add a renderer to the graph's registry

• setRenderer(rendererName): set renderer by name

• onUpdate(callback): add a callback to run when the graph is rendered

Rickshaw Extensions

Once you have a basic graph, extensions let you add functionality. See the examples listing for more.

• Rickshaw.Graph.Legend - add a basic legend

• Rickshaw.Graph.HoverDetail - show details on hover

• Rickshaw.Graph.JSONP - get data via a JSONP request

• Rickshaw.Graph.Annotate - add x-axis annotations

• Rickshaw.Graph.RangeSlider - dynamically zoom on the x-axis with a slider

• Rickshaw.Graph.Axis.Time - add x-axis time labels

• Rickshaw.Graph.Behavior.Series.Highlight - highlight series on legend hover

• Rickshaw.Graph.Behavior.Series.Order - reorder series in the stack with drag-and-drop

• Rickshaw.Graph.Behavior.Series.Toggle - toggle series on and off through the legend

Rickshaw.Color.Palette

Rickshaw comes with a few color schemes. Instantiate a palette and specify a scheme name, and then call color() on the palette to get each next color.

var palette = new Rickshaw.Color.Palette( { scheme: 'spectrum2001' } );

palette.color() // => first color in the palette
palette.color() // => next color in the palette...

Available color schemes:

• 'classic9'
• 'colorwheel'
• 'cool'
• 'munin'
• 'spectrum14'
• 'spectrum2000'
• 'spectrum2001'

Rickshaw and Cross-Browser Support

This library works in modern browsers and Internet Explorer 9.

Rickshaw relies on the HTMLElement#classList API, which isn't natively supported in Internet Explorer 9. Rickshaw adds support by including a shim which implements the classList API by extending the HTMLElement prototype. You can disable this behavior if you like, by setting RICKSHAW_NO_COMPAT to a true value before including the library.

Rickshaw.Graph.Renderer

You can create change the default options for some of the renderers.

For example, if you want the dot size in the scatter plot to be smaller than the default:

var data = [ { x: 0, y: 40 }, { x: 1, y: 49 }, { x: 2, y: 17 }, { x: 3, y: 42 } ];

var graph = new Rickshaw.Graph({
    element: document.querySelector("#chart"),
    width: 580,
    height: 250,
    series: [ {
        color: 'steelblue',
        data: data
    }]
});

// First register the new instance of the renderer with the graph
graph.registerRenderer(new Rickshaw.Graph.Renderer.ScatterPlot({graph: graph, dotSize: 1}));
// Set the graph's renderer to this new instance by its name
graph.setRenderer('scatterplot');

graph.render();

You can create your own renderers and register them in a similar manner.

Dependencies & Building

Rickshaw relies on the fantastic D3 visualization library to do lots of the heavy lifting for stacking and rendering to SVG.

Some extensions require jQuery and jQuery UI, but for drawing some basic graphs you'll be okay without.

For building, we need Node and npm. Running 'make' should get you going with any luck.

Authors

This library was developed by David Chester, Douglas Hunter, and Silas Sewell at Shutterstock

License

Copyright (C) 2011 by Shutterstock Images, LLC

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.