interactive tables / graphs in drupal

PeakOutput

i am currently having a website designed in drupal

i would like to be able to include articles that have graphs and tables like the follwoing sites

http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php

on this site i like were you can select two or more collegese from the table and it will then automatically compare them for you

and

http://www.bloomberg.com/insight/america-tied-up-by-record-debt.html

it has a line graph were when you mouse over it it displays the exact figures at that point in the graph

how could this be implemented into a drupal website?how complicated is it to do?

ocallagh

It's not too complicated. With Drupal there are two things to think about.

The first is how do you collect/store this data and the second is how to display it.

For collecting/storing the data I would recommend the CCK module which allows for custom fields for different content types. Essentially your data is just associated with bits of content (or nodes). Takes a bit of time to setup the proper fields.

To display the data in a grid (if you have no php exprience) you could use the Views module (which I think is now standard with Drupal). It is quite a complicated module to get your head around but there are good tutorials on it if you google it.

To compare the data you will need to write a custom module. It's not rocket science and there are some good tutorials out there. If you did go with a custom module you could also use it instead of the views module to refine the look and feel and also optimise the queries (Views is somewhat restricted in both these areas)

Also, with a custom module you could go further and plug the data into flash charts etc (there are a few decent free ones out there you could nab)

PeakOutput

ocallagh wrote: »

It's not too complicated. With Drupal there are two things to think about.

The first is how do you collect/store this data and the second is how to display it.

For collecting/storing the data I would recommend the CCK module which allows for custom fields for different content types. Essentially your data is just associated with bits of content (or nodes). Takes a bit of time to setup the proper fields.

To display the data in a grid (if you have no php exprience) you could use the Views module (which I think is now standard with Drupal). It is quite a complicated module to get your head around but there are good tutorials on it if you google it.

To compare the data you will need to write a custom module. It's not rocket science and there are some good tutorials out there. If you did go with a custom module you could also use it instead of the views module to refine the look and feel and also optimise the queries (Views is somewhat restricted in both these areas)

Also, with a custom module you could go further and plug the data into flash charts etc (there are a few decent free ones out there you could nab)

thanks for the response

i will more than likely be getting the developer who is designing the site for us to do this but have a basic understanding of these things so just wanted to get a grip on how much work it would entail

what exactly should i ask for of the developer to ensure i get what im looking for? i dont want to just link him to the pages and say i want that

ocallagh

I can't really answer that question because I don't know exactly what you want either. The two of us could probably work out your exact requirements over a few posts in this thread... but you should have that conversation with your developer. By including them from the start there will be less room for confusion down the line.