6.2.0-README

README - 2015-11-03 Release 6.2.0

OVERVIEW:

PHPlot is a PHP class for creating scientific and business charts.

The release documentation contains only summary information. For more complete information, download the PHPlot Reference Manual from the Sourceforge project web site. You can also view the manual online at http://phplot.sourceforge.net

For information about changes in this release, including any possible incompatibilities, see the NEWS.txt file.

CONTENTS:

• COPYING . . . . . . . . . . . . LGPL 2.1 License file
• ChangeLog . . . . . . . . . . . Lists changes to the sources
• NEWS.txt . . . . . . . . . . . . Highlights changes in releases
• NEWS_*.txt . . . . . . . . . . . Older NEWS files
• README.txt . . . . . . . . . . This file
• contrib . . . . . . . . . . . . "Contributed" directory, add-ons
• phplot.php . . . . . . . . . . The main PHPlot source file
• rgb.inc.php . . . . . . . . . . Optional extended color table

REQUIREMENTS:

You need a recent version of PHP, and you are advised to use the latest stable release. This version of PHPlot was tested with PHP-5.6.15, PHP-5.5.30, PHP-5.4.45, and also with the pre-release PHP-7.0.0RC6. (Windows testing was limited to PHP-5.4.x.)

Note: At the time of this release, PHP-5.4.x just entered end-of-life with no expected further support from the PHP Group. This version of PHPlot still works with PHP-5.4.x, but future versions will probably not be tested with or support PHP-5.4.x.

Note: At the time of this release, PHP-7 has not yet been released. This version of PHPlot has been tested with a pre-release version of PHP-7, and contains fixes that are required for PHP-7.

You need the GD extension to PHP either built in to PHP or loaded as a module. Refer to the PHP documentation for more information - see the Image Functions chapter in the PHP Manual. We test PHPlot mostly with the PHP-supported, bundled GD library.

If you want to display PHPlot charts on a web site, you need a PHP-enabled web server. You can also use the PHP CLI interface without a web server.

PHPlot supports TrueType fonts, but does not include any TrueType font files. If you want to use TrueType fonts on your plots, you need to have TrueType support in GD, and some TrueType font files. (Your operating system most likely includes TrueType fonts.) By default, PHPlot uses a simple font which is built in to the GD library.

INSTALLATION:

Unpack the distribution. (If you are reading this file, you have probably already done that.)

Installation of PHPlot simply involves copying two script files somewhere your PHP application scripts will be able to find them. The scripts are:

• phplot.php - The main script file
• rgb.inc.php - Optional large color table

Make sure the permissions on these files allow the web server to read them.

The ideal place is a directory outside your web server document area, and on your PHP include path. You can add to the include path in the PHP configuration file; consult the PHP manual for details.

UPGRADING:

To upgrade PHPlot, follow the same instructions as for installing. There may be changes between releases which can alter the appearance of your plots. Please check the top section in NEWS.txt for details.

KNOWN ISSUES:

Here are some of the problems we know about in PHPlot. See the bug tracker on the PHPlot project web site for more information.

• [bugs:#173] Area fill plots with data borders and overlapping areas
  New in release 6.2.0 are data borders for area and squaredarea plot types. With multiple data sets, if the areas overlap, the borders are drawn without regard to the overlap, and don't correspond to the visible areas.

• [bugs:#171] Dashed patters aren't continuing
  PHPlot line styles are not being drawn properly when the dashed pattern is long relative to the data point spacing.

• [bugs:#146] (was: 3142124) Clip plot elements to plot area
  Plot elements are not currently clipped to the plot area, and may extend beyond. PHP does not currently support the GD clipping control.

• [bugs:#93] (was: 1605558) Wide/Custom dashed lines don't work well
  There is a question whether this is a PHP/GD issue, or behaving as expected.

PHP Issues:

PHP has many build-time and configuration options, and these can affect the operation of PHPlot (as well as any other application or library). Here are some known issues:

• If PHP is built with Thread Safety on (ZTS), the GD extension is unable to find TrueType fonts unless the full path is given. (This might be a PHP bug.) The text in the PHPlot Reference Manual section "TrueType Font Selection" concerning finding fonts without a path does not work on these systems. This has been found to affect the version of PHP distributed with Slackware, but not Ubuntu. It affects the thread-safe PHP Windows release, but not the non-thread-safe (NTS) Windows release.

• Slackware Linux used to include a PHP built with --enable-gd-jis-conv (JIS-mapped Japanese font support). This prevented the usual UTF-8 encoding of characters from working in TrueType Font (TTF) text strings. This does not affect recent Slackware, though (14.0 and up).

• The Ubuntu Linux PHP GD package (php5-gd) was built to use the external shared GD library, not the one bundled with PHP. This can result in small differences in images, and some unsupported features (such as advanced truecolor image operations). Also, although this Ubuntu GD library was built with fontconfig support, PHP does not use it, so you still need to specify TrueType fonts with their actual file names. These also affect Ubuntu-derived distributions such as Linux Mint.

• Some PHP installations may have a memory limit set too low to support large images, especially truecolor images.

• The default TrueType font can be changed by external factors. If you enable TrueType fonts, but don't select a font name, PHPlot can find a default TrueType font on many systems, including Windows. However, the selected font can change if you install or remove software. For example, on Windows, PHPlot may select the Arial font. But then, if you install LibreOffice, the default font will change to Liberation Sans. This will change plot appearance. This happens because LibreOffice installs the Liberation font family in the Windows fonts directory, and the Liberation Sans font precedes Arial in PHPlot's list of candidate default fonts.

If you think you found a problem with PHPlot, or want to ask questions or provide feedback, please use the Help and Discussion forum at http://sourceforge.net/projects/phplot/ If you are sure you have found a bug, you can report it on the Bug tracker at the same web site. There is also a Features Request tracker.

TESTING:

You can test your installation by creating the following two files somewhere in your web document area. First, the HTML file:

------------ simpleplot.html ----------------------------
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello, PHPlot!</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>PHPlot Test</h1>
<img src="simpleplot.php">
</body>
</html>
---------------------------------------------------------

Second, in the same directory, the image file producing PHP script file. Depending on where you installed phplot.php, you may need to specify a path in the 'require' line below.

------------ simpleplot.php -----------------------------
<?php
require 'phplot.php';
$plot = new PHPlot();
$data = array(array('', 0, 0), array('', 1, 9));
$plot->SetDataValues($data);
$plot->SetDataType('data-data');
$plot->DrawGraph();
---------------------------------------------------------

Access the URL to 'simpleplot.html' in your web browser. If you see a simple graph, you have successfully installed PHPlot. If you see no graph, check your web server error log for more information.

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE:

PHPlot is Copyright (C) 1998-2015 Afan Ottenheimer

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2.1 of the License.

This software is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this software; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

Notice: Despite the presence of the letters "PHP" in the name of PHPlot, it should be apparent that this software is not a product of the PHP Group, is not derived from PHP, and the PHP Group does endorse and is not responsible for this product.