Need advice on choosing the technology for intranet based application

[Peter van Kampen]

In article <108666F172046BF0.AFF78CED7027291C.080DCC403BC7489C at lp.airnews.net>, 
Cameron Laird wrote:
> In article <Gn7i9.1769$ik2.430 at fe02>,
> Steve Holden <sholden at holdenweb.com> wrote:
>>"Nenad Propadovic" <propadovic.nenad at debitel.net> wrote ...
> 			.
> 		[much thoroughly
> 		sensible advice]
> 			.
> 			.
>>> The GUI has a part I consider complex: I have to present some statistics
>>in
>>> form of charts or graphs.
>>
>>The Python Image Library (PIL) is very good for creating graphics. You can
>>create them "on the fly" in your web server and then serve back HTML
>>documents with references to the created graphics.
> 			.
> It strikes me that Mr. Propadovic is tackling
> several new techniques and technologies at once.
> Given that, I have an alternative to suggest for
> "some statistics in form of charts or graphs".
> 
> There's a trick for making making simple bar
> charts which requires no extra modules or pro-
> gramming.  It's so simple, in fact, that it makes
> barcharting easy in shell or assembler or C.
> 
> Apparently I've only documented it in Tcl <URL:
> http://wiki.tcl.tk/barchart > (see references
> there, though, for Python hints).  If you need
> a sample dilation in Python, just say so here.
> 
> Also, Mr. Propadovic:  take Steve's advice to 
> heart.  Even the CGI about which he writes need
> not be as challenging as your comments suggest
> you fear it to be.

There's even a simpler method (for a browser-based app): CSS. The
example below works with most (all?) modern (graphical) browsers (I
checked with IE5.5, Opera 6.01 on Win2K and Mozilla 1.0.0 on linux). The
vertical bars are a little harder but not much.

I hope the HTML doesn't mess everyones clients up.

<div style="background-color:red  ;height:16px;width:100px;"></div>
<div style="background-color:blue ;height:16px;width: 50px;"></div>
<div style="background-color:green;height:16px;width: 70px;"></div>
<br />
<div style="position:relative;background-color:red;
	width:16px;height:100px;"></div>
<div style="position:relative;background-color:blue;
	width:16px;height: 50px;top: -50px;left: 20px;"></div>
<div style="position:relative;background-color:green;
	width:16px;height: 70px;top:-120px;left: 40px;"></div>

PterK