RE: Displaying information from table graphically
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2008 6:12 AM To: Jujitsu Lizard Cc: mysql@lists.mysql.com Subject: Re: Displaying information from table graphically Does it support interaction in terms of allowing user to click on individual part of the composite image and use that event to update the database? Other words does it support interactive graphics? [JS] That sounds like a job for Ajax. -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe:http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
Does it support interaction in terms of allowing user to click on individual part of the composite image and use that event to update the database? Other words does it support interactive graphics? On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 4:33 PM, Micah Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: On 11/21/2008 07:55 AM, David Giragosian wrote: On 11/21/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a PHP application that accesses data from MySQL. There is table called rooms, and table called beds. There is another table called patients. Patients are being placed into beds, and beds are in the rooms. PHP application currently displays all information in textual mode via regular HTML tags. But I would like to have that information displayed in graphical mode instead of textual mode. Is there a way to display this information from the database graphically. Graphic would represent a room, and it would contain beds inside. You would be able to see visually which beds are occupied and which are free by looking at the graphics. User of the system wants pictures instead of text displayed via HTML tables as a list of entries. Anyone knows anything like this? Thanks, Dzenan PHP has the GD library with a fairly extensive set of functions for creating images http://us2.php.net/gd. You can grab data from MySQL and then use the GD functions to create images dynamically. It can be tedious, as you create the image pixel by pixel, but the results are very good. David Or for reduced CPU overhead, just make some images for beds and rooms and use tables or positioned DIV tags to place them in the appropriate place based on the database information. To the OP: The graphical capabilities of PHP are covered in, for example, Beginning PHP4, by Choi, Kent, Lea, Prasad, and Ullman, Chapter 15. The nature of it is that PHP has built in libraries, and you create a logical sandbox, draw on it and manipulate it (at which point it is buffered internally in some convenient form), then emit it in one of the supported graphical file formats. It is a very easy process. I would guess that there are online tutorials as well. http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imagecreate.php You have to, of course, be careful about browser image buffering and so on, but there are standard ways to handle that by making sure the browser is aware it may not cache. The approach is very powerful because (if I'm remembering correctly), the underlying graphics library provides primitives for polygon shading, printing text, and so on. The approach involving selecting essentially which graphics to include in a tabular grid is also a good approach. IMHO the argument about CPU efficiency of this approach is very weak -- when you get down to making probably 200 calls to manipulate the graphical sandbox, each of these calls is going to be tight code in the library that does memory manipulations. The approach follows the standard design rule that low-frequency interactions (draw object 1, draw object 2) etc. may be done relatively inefficiently in a scripting language, but the high-frequency interactions (turn on pixel x,y; turn on pixel x+1, y, ...) are done in compiled C or assembly-language. I don't believe this will be much of a CPU burden on a server. It would be more concerned if PHP were manipulating pixels or segments one-by-one, but the library isn't designed to make this necessary. Summary: (a) Both approaches are quite good, and (b) the CPU efficiency argument for stuffing prepared images into a table or similar may be weak. The Lizard -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe:http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
You may want to have a look at this: http://www.dhtmlgoodies.com/scripts/drag-drop-custom/demo-drag-drop-3.html CheersFish On Sun, Nov 23, 2008 at 6:12 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Does it support interaction in terms of allowing user to click on individual part of the composite image and use that event to update the database? Other words does it support interactive graphics? On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 4:33 PM, Micah Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: On 11/21/2008 07:55 AM, David Giragosian wrote: On 11/21/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a PHP application that accesses data from MySQL. There is table called rooms, and table called beds. There is another table called patients. Patients are being placed into beds, and beds are in the rooms. PHP application currently displays all information in textual mode via regular HTML tags. But I would like to have that information displayed in graphical mode instead of textual mode. Is there a way to display this information from the database graphically. Graphic would represent a room, and it would contain beds inside. You would be able to see visually which beds are occupied and which are free by looking at the graphics. User of the system wants pictures instead of text displayed via HTML tables as a list of entries. Anyone knows anything like this? Thanks, Dzenan PHP has the GD library with a fairly extensive set of functions for creating images http://us2.php.net/gd. You can grab data from MySQL and then use the GD functions to create images dynamically. It can be tedious, as you create the image pixel by pixel, but the results are very good. David Or for reduced CPU overhead, just make some images for beds and rooms and use tables or positioned DIV tags to place them in the appropriate place based on the database information. To the OP: The graphical capabilities of PHP are covered in, for example, Beginning PHP4, by Choi, Kent, Lea, Prasad, and Ullman, Chapter 15. The nature of it is that PHP has built in libraries, and you create a logical sandbox, draw on it and manipulate it (at which point it is buffered internally in some convenient form), then emit it in one of the supported graphical file formats. It is a very easy process. I would guess that there are online tutorials as well. http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imagecreate.php You have to, of course, be careful about browser image buffering and so on, but there are standard ways to handle that by making sure the browser is aware it may not cache. The approach is very powerful because (if I'm remembering correctly), the underlying graphics library provides primitives for polygon shading, printing text, and so on. The approach involving selecting essentially which graphics to include in a tabular grid is also a good approach. IMHO the argument about CPU efficiency of this approach is very weak -- when you get down to making probably 200 calls to manipulate the graphical sandbox, each of these calls is going to be tight code in the library that does memory manipulations. The approach follows the standard design rule that low-frequency interactions (draw object 1, draw object 2) etc. may be done relatively inefficiently in a scripting language, but the high-frequency interactions (turn on pixel x,y; turn on pixel x+1, y, ...) are done in compiled C or assembly-language. I don't believe this will be much of a CPU burden on a server. It would be more concerned if PHP were manipulating pixels or segments one-by-one, but the library isn't designed to make this necessary. Summary: (a) Both approaches are quite good, and (b) the CPU efficiency argument for stuffing prepared images into a table or similar may be weak. The Lizard -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
On 11/21/2008 07:55 AM, David Giragosian wrote: On 11/21/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a PHP application that accesses data from MySQL. There is table called rooms, and table called beds. There is another table called patients. Patients are being placed into beds, and beds are in the rooms. PHP application currently displays all information in textual mode via regular HTML tags. But I would like to have that information displayed in graphical mode instead of textual mode. Is there a way to display this information from the database graphically. Graphic would represent a room, and it would contain beds inside. You would be able to see visually which beds are occupied and which are free by looking at the graphics. User of the system wants pictures instead of text displayed via HTML tables as a list of entries. Anyone knows anything like this? Thanks, Dzenan PHP has the GD library with a fairly extensive set of functions for creating images http://us2.php.net/gd. You can grab data from MySQL and then use the GD functions to create images dynamically. It can be tedious, as you create the image pixel by pixel, but the results are very good. David Or for reduced CPU overhead, just make some images for beds and rooms and use tables or positioned DIV tags to place them in the appropriate place based on the database information. -Micah
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 4:33 PM, Micah Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: On 11/21/2008 07:55 AM, David Giragosian wrote: On 11/21/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a PHP application that accesses data from MySQL. There is table called rooms, and table called beds. There is another table called patients. Patients are being placed into beds, and beds are in the rooms. PHP application currently displays all information in textual mode via regular HTML tags. But I would like to have that information displayed in graphical mode instead of textual mode. Is there a way to display this information from the database graphically. Graphic would represent a room, and it would contain beds inside. You would be able to see visually which beds are occupied and which are free by looking at the graphics. User of the system wants pictures instead of text displayed via HTML tables as a list of entries. Anyone knows anything like this? Thanks, Dzenan PHP has the GD library with a fairly extensive set of functions for creating images http://us2.php.net/gd. You can grab data from MySQL and then use the GD functions to create images dynamically. It can be tedious, as you create the image pixel by pixel, but the results are very good. David Or for reduced CPU overhead, just make some images for beds and rooms and use tables or positioned DIV tags to place them in the appropriate place based on the database information. To the OP: The graphical capabilities of PHP are covered in, for example, Beginning PHP4, by Choi, Kent, Lea, Prasad, and Ullman, Chapter 15. The nature of it is that PHP has built in libraries, and you create a logical sandbox, draw on it and manipulate it (at which point it is buffered internally in some convenient form), then emit it in one of the supported graphical file formats. It is a very easy process. I would guess that there are online tutorials as well. http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imagecreate.php You have to, of course, be careful about browser image buffering and so on, but there are standard ways to handle that by making sure the browser is aware it may not cache. The approach is very powerful because (if I'm remembering correctly), the underlying graphics library provides primitives for polygon shading, printing text, and so on. The approach involving selecting essentially which graphics to include in a tabular grid is also a good approach. IMHO the argument about CPU efficiency of this approach is very weak -- when you get down to making probably 200 calls to manipulate the graphical sandbox, each of these calls is going to be tight code in the library that does memory manipulations. The approach follows the standard design rule that low-frequency interactions (draw object 1, draw object 2) etc. may be done relatively inefficiently in a scripting language, but the high-frequency interactions (turn on pixel x,y; turn on pixel x+1, y, ...) are done in compiled C or assembly-language. I don't believe this will be much of a CPU burden on a server. It would be more concerned if PHP were manipulating pixels or segments one-by-one, but the library isn't designed to make this necessary. Summary: (a) Both approaches are quite good, and (b) the CPU efficiency argument for stuffing prepared images into a table or similar may be weak. The Lizard
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
On 11/22/2008 04:30 PM, Jujitsu Lizard wrote: Summary: (a) Both approaches are quite good, and (b) the CPU efficiency argument for stuffing prepared images into a table or similar may be weak. The Lizard By using pre-drawn images and HTML img tag calls you distribute the processing to the client side, by doing this is certainly reduces overhead because you're sending text thereby eliminating ANY overhead at all. I think this almost by definition would suggest a significantly lower overhead. Granted in a one shot call, the difference will be minuscule, in a production web server environment with many client calls, you want to distribute this as much as possible to reduce server overhead and I think anyone here that has done GD processing in a production environment will tell you, using it isn't free by any stretch of the imagination. -Micah -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe:http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
On 11/22/2008 07:14 PM, Micah Stevens wrote: On 11/22/2008 04:30 PM, Jujitsu Lizard wrote: Summary: (a) Both approaches are quite good, and (b) the CPU efficiency argument for stuffing prepared images into a table or similar may be weak. The Lizard By using pre-drawn images and HTML img tag calls you distribute the processing to the client side, by doing this is certainly reduces overhead because you're sending text thereby eliminating ANY overhead at all. I think this almost by definition would suggest a significantly lower overhead. Granted in a one shot call, the difference will be minuscule, in a production web server environment with many client calls, you want to distribute this as much as possible to reduce server overhead and I think anyone here that has done GD processing in a production environment will tell you, using it isn't free by any stretch of the imagination. -Micah I failed to mention that by avoiding the use of GD lib calls, it also simplifies development greatly. A paint program and HTML beats learning a new library any day. However if this is a learning exercise which it sounds like it might be, the variables all change. -Micah
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 10:14 PM, Micah Stevens [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: On 11/22/2008 04:30 PM, Jujitsu Lizard wrote: Summary: (a) Both approaches are quite good, and (b) the CPU efficiency argument for stuffing prepared images into a table or similar may be weak. The Lizard By using pre-drawn images and HTML img tag calls you distribute the processing to the client side, by doing this is certainly reduces overhead because you're sending text thereby eliminating ANY overhead at all. I think this almost by definition would suggest a significantly lower overhead. Granted in a one shot call, the difference will be minuscule, in a production web server environment with many client calls, you want to distribute this as much as possible to reduce server overhead and I think anyone here that has done GD processing in a production environment will tell you, using it isn't free by any stretch of the imagination. -Micah Well, if you want to get into detail ... The approach you suggested requires the client to fetch a small number of different static images (maybe 5) from the web server. I've gotta assume that there won't be more GETs, as the web browser should be smart enough to know that images with the same path and with no contraindications (header nocache info) don't require a separate fetch. For each of those HTTP requests for the image, the web server has to process the request, which includes opening the TCP connection, parsing the request, double-checking permissions and paths, etc., delivering the data, and closing the TCP connection. I'm sure Apache is very efficient at that stuff, but I'd be left with the question of whether processing multiple requests for static images costs less or more than generating a single dynamic image. Using the example of 5 static images, you'd potentially have 6 HTTP requests, whereas with the dynamic approach there would be 2 HTTP requests. When one includes the overhead of processing the TCP connection, writing HTTP log entries, parsing and checking permissions on the GET, etc. ... I'm just not sure which approach would chew up more CPU time. HTTP GETs aren't free, either. The Lizard
Re: Displaying information from table graphically
On 11/21/08, [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a PHP application that accesses data from MySQL. There is table called rooms, and table called beds. There is another table called patients. Patients are being placed into beds, and beds are in the rooms. PHP application currently displays all information in textual mode via regular HTML tags. But I would like to have that information displayed in graphical mode instead of textual mode. Is there a way to display this information from the database graphically. Graphic would represent a room, and it would contain beds inside. You would be able to see visually which beds are occupied and which are free by looking at the graphics. User of the system wants pictures instead of text displayed via HTML tables as a list of entries. Anyone knows anything like this? Thanks, Dzenan PHP has the GD library with a fairly extensive set of functions for creating images http://us2.php.net/gd. You can grab data from MySQL and then use the GD functions to create images dynamically. It can be tedious, as you create the image pixel by pixel, but the results are very good. David
