Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
I believe Oracle made a great decision here in not trying to build a Flash chart engine themselves
because charting is a whole area in itself and evolves very quickly. There are many charting engines
around, but going with AnyChart was definitely not a bad choice, as they are committed to evolving their
product along with the rest of the charting world.
That AnyChart wouldn't stand still proved to be true over time. In Oracle APEX 3.0, version 3.3 of the
AnyChart product was included, but a year later AnyChart 4 was already out, and soon after that, version
5. With the patch releases of APEX 3.x, Oracle included newer versions of AnyChart, but it was only in the
Interactive Reports that AnyChart 4 and later AnyChart 5 were used.
With the release of APEX 4.0, AnyChart 5 is now completely supported in the wizards. In fact, all new
charts you create will automatically use the AnyChart 5 engine. As Oracle wants APEX to be compatible
with older versions and needs to support existing applications using Flash charts, AnyChart 3.3 is also
included in APEX 4.0. So if you run your APEX 3.x application in APEX 4.0, it will still show AnyChart 3.3
charts. Please note that the version of AnyChart 5 is a special version compiled for Oracle and doesn't
include all available chart types that AnyChart 5 supports.
Over time, AnyChart has developed other charting components. Next to the AnyChart charting
solution, they now also have AnyGantt, AnyMap, and AnyStock. In APEX 4.0, Oracle decided to also
license AnyGantt Gantt charts and AnyMap Interactive maps. The Oracle APEX development team built
wizards around these engines so you can create Gantt and map types declaratively too.
Creating a Flash Chart
Let's say you have a blank page in an APEX application and you want to add a chart to it. From APEX 4
onwards, I recommend you use the Tree view instead of the Component view for your page. The Tree
view allows you to access the different components (and make changes) a lot more quickly. That is why
all screenshots and the actions I'll describe will be based on using the Tree view.
To add your first chart, right click Regions in the Tree view of the page and select Create in the menu
to add a new region to that page. For region type, select Chart (Figure 2-7).
