Graphs using Google Visualization API Annotated Time Line

[jader.dias]

Would be very nice if Zabbix showed us Flash graphs instead of the current one. Maybe it could be an option or plugin.

The flash graph I like the most is the

Google Visualization API: Annotated Time Line

http://code.google.com/apis/visualization/documentation/gallery/annotatedtimeline.html

[nelsonab]

As neat as the graphs are they load a lot of the rendering responsibility on the client web browser. The current graphing functions in Zabbix perform the rendering on the server based on parameters sent. The Zabbix implimentation is useful in that the data used to create the graph is only transmitted from the DB to the server, and not the DB to the web browser as it would be using the Google API. I think it's cool, but I don't see it being very useful for Zabbix.

[jader.dias]

@nelsonab

My goal here is to improve the user experience and let him reach the data he wants as fast as possible.

If you are concerned about rendering performance on the client side, let me assure you that there are workarounds for this, and there is a way to render any amount of data in the client side without making the browser to become unresponsive.

Once you get used to the Annotated Time Line, you will not want to go back to the current Zabbix graph solution.

[richlv]

once you try to use flash on linux for a prolonged period of time you'll take anything over flash graphs

[Alexei]

Are you suggesting that all Zabbix users should rely on Google infrastructure, goodwill and availability of internet connection? No, thank you.

Besides "My goal here is to improve the user experience and let him reach the data he wants as fast as possible." is not a valid argument because Zabbix spends most of the time on data retrieval not on rendering of a graph. Wait for the latest 1.8.2 to see how fast Zabbix graphs are!

[gpmidi]

Interactive Graphs

I think the real message we should take is that it would be nice in the Zabbix graphs were interactive. If you could hover your mouse over a given data-point and see information about it or if you could scroll back and forth on the graphs it would be nice.
-Paul

[richlv]

I think the real message we should take is that it would be nice in the Zabbix graphs were interactive. If you could hover your mouse over a given data-point and see information about it or if you could scroll back and forth on the graphs it would be nice.
-Paul

oh, definitely. and move mouse over legend to have series hilighted, hilight legend when mouse-overing series, click on legend to enable/disable individual series... probably highly, highly non-trivial to implement for all the browsers, though

[gpmidi]

Agreed

oh, definitely. and move mouse over legend to have series hilighted, hilight legend when mouse-overing series, click on legend to enable/disable individual series... probably highly, highly non-trivial to implement for all the browsers, though

Yeah, but there may be open source libraries out there that can do it without relying on Google. Personally, I've never seen any. But that may change or I may have missed them.
-Paul

[Aly]

Flash would be the last choice, from my point of view.

[richlv]

the last holdout for svg seems to have given in.

Microsoft Adopts SVG For Internet Explorer 9

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/03/27/050221

there's also an interesting project from google which allows to render svg in ie using js :

http://code.google.com/p/svgweb/

that one unfortunately requires flash, but allows to use native svg in decent browsers.

[zabbix_zen]

Impressive demos.

Linux Flash is still a mess.
Besides being 5x slower than it's Win counterpart, stability is also an issue( I'm not even talking about x86_64 version here).

Don't believe in silver bullets but maybe HTML5 will prove to be a viable alternative (Flash 10.1 is only faster if having access to GPU processing, which it still only has in Win), thought it will take close to 3 years for it to be massively used.

Though Zabbix users would welcome some face lift similar to this, I assume it just isn't businesslike in the short term.

[jader.dias]

I did it

I made a separate web app which reads from the Zabbix database and shows some flash graphics, with mouse hover effects and showing multiple variables simultaneously.

It was pretty easy using Google Visualization API.

Unfortunately I can't release the source code since it is owned by my company.

[untergeek]

For my 2 cents, I like the current PHP implementation. There will always be room for improvement in any software system. It's the nature of continuing advancement. HTML5 sounds quite promising.

Is there any work being done to explore HTML5 and the graphs?

[richlv]

unfortunately, html5, canvas, svg and anything else interesting enough is not really an option until some older browsers are supported.
think certain browser from a certain huge company down to version 6. it's worse than any mythical creature and just won't die...