Hey guys, another question came up as I was studying the framework.
Vaadin charts is a commercial add-on that provides an abstraction over Highcharts JS API.
There is another implementation over the same API, GWT Highcharts, that is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license.
This one is totally client side library, so my question: in your opinion, based on your knowledge in Vaadin, the only possible way I would have to consider to use GWT Highcharts in a Vaadin application is creating an add-on and implementing the server side stuff that would ‘bind’ and control the client-side API provided in this library?
Thanks in advance, one more time. Great forum, great discussions! I hope I can start contributing soon, as far as I have some control over the framework.
Please note that GWT Hightcharts (which is a GWT wrapper around Highcharts) comes with Apache 2.0 license but you require separate Highcharts license to run it unless you are on a personal/non-profit project. http://www.moxiegroup.com/moxieapps/gwt-highcharts/license.jsp
As Syam said, you’ll still need the license for most cases, so it don’t make that much sense. With Vaadin Charts comes a special license for Highcharts. Also, by buying Vaadin Charts, you’ll at the same time give something back to the company that provides you the core Vaadin for free.
But in theory: yes, you could use it when making Vaadin integration, but it you’d need to write the related server side API and client side integration - somehing that will require quite some time and coffee.
If you are making pure GWT apps, GWT Highcharts is the way to go.
As the others answered, Vaadin Charts is a wrapper around Highcharts (conceptually, not literally). Highcharts itself is a client-side JavaScript library for drawing high-performance and good-looking charts. So the charts are being drawn on the client by the client (the browser); that’s efficient so we do not have to ship chart images over the network/internet.
Vaadin Charts provides the
added-value of binding the server-side state (source data backing the charts) to the client-side HighCharts JavaScript library that is actually drawing the charts in the browser.
This value-add includes automatic
Push . You update your collection of data on the server-side and Vaadin Charts automatically (a) Delivers the fresh data to the Highcharts object on the client, and (b) Notifies the client-side chart object that it needs to update itself (re-draw the chart).
For an example of this updating of server-side data, see the
SplineUpdatingEachSecond demo of
Vaadin Charts . Click the
Source tab to see the remarkably brief Java code. Note the
Runnable class and
run method that updates the server-side data every second. You simply update your data set, and Vaadin Charts takes it from there, doing all the heavy-lifting of getting the charts updated and redrawn.
So, yes, you could use Highcharts directly, or with the help of that GWT library, but Vaadin makes it super-simple to hook up your data to the charts. And you still have to pay a license either way.
For anyone curious about Vaadin Charts but has not yet tried it, see
my blog post for the simplest example to try yourself. Just 3 lines of code to add to a new Vaadin project created by the Vaadin Plugin.
Remember Vaadin Charts is free to try for a limited time, but otherwise requires a license.
