We are happy to announce public availability of the first beta of amCharts JavaScript/HTML5 Bundle.
What’s in this release?
This release comes with support for serial (column, bar, line, area, step line, smoothed line, candlestick, ohlc) and pie/donut charts. It’s the next generation of amCharts based on feature-set and functionality of our Flex charts. Support for bubble, scatter, radar, polar and other charts is coming soon.
The available chart types implement all the features found in our other charts in an industry leading HTML5 charting bundle. The charts offer unmatched functionality and performance in a modern, standards compliant package.
Our goal was not to create yet another simple JavaScript/HTML5 charting library, but the one we can be proud of and the one that can compete head-to-head with leading Flash and/or Silverlight solutions. We wanted a solution that can be used interchangeably with our Flash charts.
Supports all modern browsers
We’ve used the great Raphaël JavaScript drawing library which enables us to support all modern browsers including (but not limited to) modern versions of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and Internet Explorer. It also runs on mobile devices powered by iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch) and Android Honeycomb. It demonstrates stellar performance in hardware-accelerated Internet Explorer 9 RC which reaffirms it’s bright future.
What about amCharts Flash Charts?
Our JavaScript charts aren’t a replacement for our Flash charts but rather an addition to our broad range of data visualization offerings. There are scenarios were plugin based solutions still provide better performance which can be important with larger amounts of data. The functionality of Flash based solutions is also more consistent across browsers and operating systems.
But you don’t have to choose one or the other. Soon we will introduce a fallback mechanism that would let developers use both Flash and JavaScript charts interchangeably based on the client’s browser and/or developer preferences.
Licensing and availability
JavaScript charts are available in a combined bundle with our Flash charts. Customers who bought a license for our Flash charts on or after November 16th, 2010 will get the upgrade free of charge.
To get your copy of link-free JavaScript bundle, login into our client area at extra.amcharts.com. Use the email address you’ve used when purchasing your license and your purchase reference number as password.
All other customers will be able to purchase an upgrade license by visiting the same client area.
Where to start?
Download amCharts JavaScript library from our download page. The download includes an extensive set of samples to get you started. Check them out online:
Over the next few weeks we will post a number of tutorials in this blog, so come back soon or subscribe to our RSS feed to be notified about new updates.
We are working hard on the reference documentation for the JavaScript library, but it’s not ready yet. Good news is that class structure and property names are almost an exact copy of our Flex charts so you can use Flex documentation for reference until the proper JavaScript docs are published.
Looking forward to your feedback
We believe our charts are the best and we are sure you will love them. That said it’s only a beta and we would love to hear your feedback. Let us know what you think via email, comments to this post or in the forums.
