Introducing Highcharts Cloud Alpha

Highcharts cloud

Did you ever want to use a full charting API without writing a single line of code? Highcharts Cloud is the ideal tool for designers, journalists or bloggers to create their Highcharts without having to actually learn JavaScript, or for seasoned developers to quickly set up prototypes. Use the online editor to design your charts and change the data, then serve it directly from the cloud. After the chart is saved you can easily share it on social media or embed it directly into your web page.

Try it now at cloud.highcharts.com!

CREATING YOUR FIRST CHART

To create your first chart you select one of the template charts and modify its look and the underlying data. Clicking ‘Create Chart’ from the front page gets you to the templates dialog. Templates exists for line charts, area charts, bar/column charts and pie charts. The templates only contain very basic settings and a small sample data set.
cloudtemplate
After you have selected a template you are taken to the editor where more settings can be changed. For example, to change the chart title, you select the ‘Titles’ section in the view called ‘Simple’. There you will find fields for updating the main title, subtitle and axis titles. Typing text in the field will directly update the chart on the right.
cloudedit

SAVING CHARTS

Charts are saved by clicking ‘Save’, saving a chart will give it a generated name and a version that starts with 0. The name is a semi-random string that mixes vowels and consonants, like “oqypu”. Clicking ‘Save’ again will bump the version number to 1. The other way to save charts is to click ‘Fork’, this will give the chart a new name and start over at version 0.
cloudsave
Logged in users can also set a base version for their charts. A base version is a special version that will be shown if no version are specified.

Examples:

  • "oqypu/3" will show version 3
  • "oqypu" will show the base version (or version 0 if no base version is set)

LOGGING IN

You can use Highcharts Cloud without logging in, but logged in users can set a base version of their charts and also remove unused charts. We don’t store any passwords at our site, instead we let you log in using an OpenId provider such as Gmail.

cloudlogin

SHARING AND EMBEDDING CHARTS

To share a chart you click the ‘Share’ button from the editor page. This will bring up a dialog with 3 tabs, one for sharing on social sites, one for embedding the chart in your own web page and one for emailing a link to the chart.
cloudshare
Clicking for example the Facebook icon will take you to the Facebook share page and you get the option to add a description and more text to share. A small thumbnail of the chart will also be added to your share. The embed tab simply shows a small piece of html code that you can use to embed the chart in an iframe on your web page. To send an email with a link to the chart, just click the email icon on the last tab. This will bring up your email client with a template email with the link filled in.

LICENSING

The Alpha release of Highcharts Cloud is intended for preview, though charts served through it will work well when shared on social media and embedded in websites. For the final release, we will most likely introduce a freemium model where the tool can be used for free and without subscription to generate basic charts, and then a subscription is required for advanced features. The web application will also be sold as OEM for installation in corporate websites, media houses etc.

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