No more Flash!

We have converted to a native graphing library (Highcharts) that works on almost every platform, including iPhone and iPad. It loads faster and it looks good. The graphs look and feel the same as the old ones, so other than the fact that they will now work on your non-Flash devices, you can barely tell the difference:

Bonus: this will finally allow us to send PDF email reports. In fact, those have been under development for about a week now, alongside this. They're almost done... we were planning to release them at the same time but a few last minute issues dashed those hopes. Tomorrow, perhaps.

The only bad thing about Highcharts is that it doesn't (yet) work on Android, because Android doesn't support SVG. The next version will supposedly have SVG, but in the meantime the developers are working on an update to make this library compatible with this OS, as can be seen on github. For now, Android users will see the old school bar graphs instead. (I'm an Android user so yes I take this problem quite seriously.)

Ok, so we do have one last piece of Flash left on our site, that being the maps you see in Locale->Global map. If anyone knows of a similar non-Flash library, do share.

54 comments | Jul 13 2011 9:04am

Reader Comments

Love it. Great job.

Mark Seifert Jul 13 2011 5:33pm

Rock and roll.... Thanks for fixing that. My iPad is where I do most of the work these days. Now it's much better!!!!

Eat Jxn Jul 13 2011 5:49pm

Geochart

http://code.google.com/apis/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/geochart.html

Simon Brown Jul 13 2011 5:50pm

Very clued into getclicky analytics for http://www.flirtydivatees.com, picked up on a change right away, it was those rounded corners. If you say it does the same job as it has always done...I can live with the rounded corners.

Linda Jul 13 2011 6:02pm

so you drop android support to please iphone users...

Anonymous Jul 13 2011 6:06pm

sorry should have read a bit further down, before I jumped the gun. android users get the old flash graphs. no harm there. :)

Anonymous Jul 13 2011 6:09pm

Seemy you need to add som epadding to the top of the charts. They get cut off.

Anonymous Jul 13 2011 6:11pm

actually, having just looked at it on android, you have gimped android over iphone. Why pick highcharts over the plethera of other non flash charting tools you could have used?

Anonymous Jul 13 2011 6:16pm

We looked at almost every option. Highcharts is the best looking and most fully featured one. Every option has at least one major negative. To me, not working on one specific mobile OS is worth the tradeoff of having the best looking and most fully featured graphing solution out there.

Trust me, I feel your pain - I have been an Android user for 2 years so this was a touch decision but ultimately I feel it's the right one, especially since newer versions of Android will have SVG, and Highcharts is working on non-SVG Android compatiblity for a future release (which we will jump on the second it's available). We have 3x as many iOS users as Android users on the main getclicky.com web site anyways, so even though I don't have an iOS device, I want to make the best experience possible for the majority of our users.

Sean (Clicky) Jul 13 2011 6:46pm

Simon, that is only a global map, which is cool, but we also need maps of every single country so people can zoom in.

Sean (Clicky) Jul 13 2011 7:34pm

nice!

just noticed the change and loving it!

Garrett Leyenaar Jul 13 2011 7:53pm

cool, cant tell a difference yet, but do these render faster than flash versions?

Karim Jul 13 2011 8:27pm

Awesome work!!! Love it!

jcskyrock Jul 13 2011 8:28pm

i love this plugin. :)

great! Jul 13 2011 8:34pm

RIP flash, we had a great time there.

chuck Jul 13 2011 9:01pm

Yay!! They look great.

Adam Jul 13 2011 9:54pm

Those rounded corners looks good and are cuter than the spiky lines. Love that you guys keep improving Clicky. Keep up the good work! ;)

TheGuardian Jul 14 2011 1:32am

The flash is dead, long live the...actually, no.

Steve Wright Jul 14 2011 2:54am

Excellent... looks good! Flash was functional but this change is welcomed!

Clint Cielto Jul 14 2011 3:36am

There is some problem with cache , it doesn't update sometimes (I mean when I click on dashboard link at left it keeps showing me old chart), I have to reload page manually with F5. Also.. I hate these rounded corners.

Csaba Jul 14 2011 6:51am

There is some problem with cache (...) 2nd that!

Marcelo Jul 14 2011 7:32am

Cache issue fixed just now. Sorry bout that, our new developer didn't know our web server sends out aggressive cache headers for all Javascript content.

Sean (Clicky) Jul 14 2011 7:42am

Also added a bit of extra padding at the top so the very top of lines don't get cut off when the Y-axis has a large scale.

Sean (Clicky) Jul 14 2011 8:01am

It does support that, here's a demo:

http://www.isimonbrown.co.uk/files/mapdemo.html

It's very unpolished and adds a row for Germany since that's the only way I could stop it showing an error when showing a country, but it shows that it's possible.

Simon Brown Jul 14 2011 8:45am

Ah, cool. Thanks. Will be looking into more in the future.

Sean (Clicky) Jul 14 2011 9:04am

Thanx for correcting cache issue. What about those rounded corners ? It's annoying :(

Csaba Jul 14 2011 9:27am

yes, the corners are TOO round :)

jacktiger Jul 14 2011 10:08am

I agree with the rounded corners. I just can't get over it. The sharp edges/corners were just easier to look at.

Marc Jul 14 2011 11:31am

It can be easily configured in Highcharts script, I just can't understand why our suggestions/requirements are ignored.

Csaba Jul 14 2011 1:08pm

I chose the splines intentionally. I think they look better.

With any change there will always be people who dislike. It's impossible to make everyone happy and I accept that.

Sean (Clicky) Jul 14 2011 1:16pm

Make us all happy, dammit! I kid, I kid.

I'll get over it. Just thought I'd provide some feedback.

Marc Jul 14 2011 1:33pm

@Sean, thanx for reply, but as you can see there were indications from more users it's hard to read. I suggest to make option in account where we can decide to use splines or lines. And then everybody would be happy ;)

Csaba Jul 14 2011 1:35pm

pleeeease, undo all those things, go back to flash!!!!

soysanluis Jul 14 2011 3:37pm

It makes me happy that you guys notice this type of stuff and even care about it. It is that type of TLC that keeps Clicky fresh as it gets older and doesn't just get more cruft-ridden.

And that's what makes me a happy customer-camper.

Riyad Kalla Jul 14 2011 4:07pm

LOVE the JS version, and keep the curves, its much more representative of the data, as it is all really a constant curve.

DavidNudes Jul 14 2011 5:25pm

Great!!! This is really good news!!

Paul Willen Jul 15 2011 1:44am

Here's a Chrome extension to change the graphs to line graphs:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hajlpafmladgdlgijgdnndakkcklmfde

Simon Brown Jul 15 2011 8:04am

Thanx Simon for your work, unfortunately it doesn't work. Did you try it ?

Csaba Jul 15 2011 9:27am

Yes, it works for me. Make sure you do a full page refresh after installing (not just clicking a link). If it still doesn't work, try clicking a link, in case the script it uses didn't load in time.

Simon Brown Jul 15 2011 9:43am

To me it seems to be some issue with reference to chart object. I mean this line of code: Highcharts.setOptions({ chart: { type:"line" }});
But I have no experiences with chrome extension development yet. All those charts seems to be loaded by ajax. Hope you'll be able to fix that and make few of us happy ;)

In old version it was easy to find the exact point on chart where to move your cursor to get a number hint. Now I have to walk over the line to get the hint. I said this before... The old version was MUCH BETTER ! Still can't understand why there isn't an option in preferences to set this on account level. And everybody would be happy.

Csaba Jul 15 2011 9:45am

I don't know what else to suggest. Does it work with the blog account?

http://getclicky.com/user/#/stats/?site_id=32020

Simon Brown Jul 15 2011 9:50am

@Simon, I tried to do full refresh, then close/open browser but still doesn't work. You said: "try clicking a link" . What link you mean ? Thanx

Csaba Jul 15 2011 9:51am

Nope, doesn't work with blog either.

Csaba Jul 15 2011 9:53am

Just noticed comment on plugin page. There must be some other user too who was unable to get it work.

Csaba Jul 15 2011 9:58am

I'll remove it.

Simon Brown Jul 15 2011 9:59am

Why not make an option to use the flash charts so Android users can view them. Still can not understand why you went out of your way to make iOS users happy at the expense of Android users. Now Android users suffer for Steve Jobs pig headedness over flash.

Wes Jul 15 2011 6:16pm

Could use a little padding on the X-axis as well. The first number is being cut of for 100.000 and up.

I'm also seeing an error in the style declaration for the text classes:
0 (see: undefinedfont-family)

Jean-Paul Jul 15 2011 8:07pm

That should read:

<text x="42" y="150.1" style="undefinedfont-family:Tahoma;font-size:11px;width:155px;color:#666;line-height:14px;fill:#666;" text-anchor="end"><tspan x="42">0</tspan></text>

Jean-Paul Jul 15 2011 8:09pm

I appreciate the effort to make it flash-free but I really hated the rounded edges... I hope you can switch to google charts

http://code.google.com/apis/chart/interactive/docs/gallery/linechart.html

Ibrahim Jul 16 2011 5:37am

changing the graphs to a non-flash solution is a massive step in the right direction and i'm looking forward to the impending PDF reports, but i'd also like to add a -1 for the rounded edges. Aesthetically speaking i'm all in favour but it does definitely diminish the perceived accuracy of the charts. The angled/sharp edges just feel like they remain truer to the actual data, and as someone else pointed out it used to be much easier to find the points with your mouse to activate the tooltips. Also on a minor point, if theres only a minor increase/decrease between 2 points its now almost impossible to see it whereas before the incline/decline was apparent even if it was only subtle. I know you cant be all things to all people but i think this should definitely be an option in the config

benw Jul 16 2011 6:27am

That's exactly what I said. I'm user with custom plan here and was impressed with the quality of this service. But if the staff ignores requirements and suggestions from their members I'll move away.
This is really a very simple request (implement option to choose the angled/sharp edges) and can be implemented within very very short time and would make us all happy.
Sean decided to not answer this thread anymore. I hope he'll come back and write something "positive".

Csaba Jul 17 2011 7:10am

I'm not going to move away, its only a relatively minor gripe but im sure things like this do have an accumulative effect. I think as a community we could definitely benefit from some kind of feature voting system though similar to what dropbox have so that we can all get a better indication of what features/changes are important to people in general, however minor.

Theres a $25 plugin which mimics this "votebox" functionality which runs on wordpress (http://aviathemes.com/plugins/avia-feedback-box/). Might be worth a look for the benefits it could bring

benw Jul 18 2011 4:04am

Agree. Why not just ask the community ? I'm sure you can get valuable feedback from your customers.

Csaba Jul 18 2011 11:11am

Sadly, the "not flash" version is not working on my Android phone! :( In my opinion, is a step back.

Szilard-Ervin Szogyenyi Jul 25 2011 5:55am

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