Has Anyone here used ZedGraph

[ashutosh9910]

Has anyone over here used ZedGraph dlls to create graphs for ASP.NET applications.

I am having quite a lot of difficulties implementing it.
The help and wiki seems to be insufficient for my case.

Would like to have some expert help over the issue.


Anyone.........


Secondly has anyone ever tried to create an excel document without actually having office installed on the machine. Looks possible as I had a go at it and reached quite near to it.

Would like to hear others' views on these points


Ashutosh

 

[mskeel]

Secondly has anyone ever tried to create an excel document without actually having office installed on the machine. Looks possible as I had a go at it and reached quite near to it.

You've got a few options. You probably won't be able to make a real .xls binary file (and you user won't be able to read it anyway) but you could make CSV files which can be read by Excel. Also, you might want to take a look at the save as...xml function in Excel. That might be worth considering if you need more advanced save options such as multiple tabs or rich text options. You will not be able to tap into Excel directly via COM to make the files. Also, you might want to check out this Apache Foundation project, though it won't be able to help you directly.

I really must ask: if you don't have Excel installed, why would you care about making an Excel document? It's not like you'd be able to use it.

 

[ashutosh9910]

You've got a few options. You probably won't be able to make a real .xls binary file (and you user won't be able to read it anyway) but you could make CSV files which can be read by Excel.

Basically I am creating a website where in you would have a facility to export your data in form of excel files and the data consists of certain tables ( which is not a big problem) as well as charts for the same.

Now I want this functionality to be implemented without having MSOffice installed on the server (which very much is a real situation rather than a hypothetical one.). Thats why I want a real .xls binary file doesn't matter if i myself can not read it. But atleast I can give my users the facility to download the same.

You will not be able to tap into Excel directly via COM to make the files.

What about using Office XP PIAs. I have that option as well. But am facing a few problems in that as well.


Hope the things clear up now..

 

[mskeel]

What about using Office XP PIAs. I have that option as well. But am facing a few problems in that as well.

I'm pretty sure those won't work if you don't have Excel installed. I think that the PIA's are just managed wrappers around lower level calls to Office.

The web-based office application was the one scenario that I could think of where this might be useful but it hit me after I had written my post. I've seen a couple of really good Word and Excel clones so I know it can be done. I don't know what the backends were for those, though. There's got to be something out there. I'll keep an eye out. Sorry I can't be of any real help.

 

[ashutosh9910]

not a problem.

i m glad i could move you from "theres no way of doing it" to "there is some way of doing it"

Now I changed my way to Open Office and reached a point where I could create documents successfully, the only problem being that it creates some *.sxc or *.ods files that are in open office format and can not be opened using Excel.

Still looking forward to any solutions.

PS - The Zedgraph issue still goes unanswered..... Strange that no one ever needed to create charts using .NET.....



Ashutosh

 

[mskeel]

i m glad i could move you from "theres no way of doing it" to "there is some way of doing it"

I never said it couldn't be done. In fact I pointed out three ways it could be done: CSV, XML, and Jakarta POI (which is used by Open Office). Did you look at that link to the Apache Foundation?

A little context never hurts when asking questions. Often times with vague or strange questions I will question the askers' motivation to make sure that is really what they want to do. Sometimes people think they want a certain solution when really they need something else entirely or there might be a simpler way to reach their goal.

A served webpage is a lot different than a deployed application.

 

[ashutosh9910]

I never said it couldn't be done. In fact I pointed out three ways it could be done: CSV, XML, and Jakarta POI (which is used by Open Office). Did you look at that link to the Apache Foundation?

A little context never hurts when asking questions. Often times with vague or strange questions I will question the askers' motivation to make sure that is really what they want to do. Sometimes people think they want a certain solution when really they need something else entirely or there might be a simpler way to reach their goal.

A served webpage is a lot different than a deployed application.

Sorry if that hurts

I was just refering to

You probably won't be able to make a real .xls binary file

Anyways

As a general policy we try to collaborate as much as possible with other projects to provide this functionality. Examples include: Cocoon for which there are serializers for HSSF; Open Office.org with whom we collaborate in documenting the XLS format; and Lucene for which we'll soon have file format interpretors. When practical, we donate components directly to those projects for POI-enabling them.

Yes I did look at the link from Jakarta but I guesss this is not what open office uses. I might be wrong in saying that but atleast this is what I got from above..

Sory if the post hurt you. It was never intended for that.

 

[mskeel]

Believe me, I'm not hurt by any comments you've made. It's often times very hard to communicate tone via the forums.

What are you using server side for this project of yours?

 

[ashutosh9910]

Believe me, I'm not hurt by any comments you've made. It's often times very hard to communicate tone via the forums.

What are you using server side for this project of yours?

I tried quite a few things.

1. OWC
2. Office XP PIAs

Then discovered that they need a valid license of MSOffice. So gave up on that front.

3. Tried creating instances of OpenOffice using the dlls provided at OOoForums.
4. Tried the dlls at OpenDocument4All

Then discovered they would output only Open Document Format which are specific to Open Office so gave up on that front as well.

FInally I am looking at a solution where I keep a templet xls file with my project, open it using ADODB and insert or update whatever is required and save the same.

Regarding charts, I am using ZedGraph to create the chart images and would try to somehow put those images into that xls file. Have not yet thought of the concrete solution though.


Any further ideas are most welcome.


Thanks for the help....


Ashutosh