Best way to do online graphics?

6 replies
I am a spaghetti coder from the days of DOS basic and achieved a reasonable standard of competency, but recently I have not done any coding beyond simple HTML mashups for ebay auctions and the like.

I'd like to progress my web skills and would like to be able to do some live graphics. I have two ideas - one involves moving coloured "cards" around on the screen (by the user) then having the site determine their position and do some processing (probably involving database activity from there).

Another involves getting information from the user and producing some live graphics based on the user input (generate some excel like graphs and independent (simple) animation).

As my skills are rudimentary, I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on what is the best language to learn how to do this sort of thing. I would prefer the simplest, general purpose language that would do the job. Maybe PHP? Does PHP do live graphics? I know it pretty much does everything else, so I'm thinking this is the way to go. Could PHP do the tasks I describe? Or do you guys have a better suggestion for me? Maybe javscript or something else?

Please remember simple is best - I want to learn out of a book or two, not a year at uni!

Thanks,

INM
#graphics #online
  • Profile picture of the author mojojuju
    PHP is certainly a good server side component to doing the kinds of graphics stuff you mention. There is an ImageMagick extension for PHP which can do a lot of neat image manipulation stuff.

    PHP also works well with the GD library as another way of producing or modifying images on the server.

    Here's a PHP class to produce charts. I haven't played around with it yet, but that page shows some nifty looking charts using PHP and the GD library.

    Some of the other stuff you mention, like the thing about moving the cards around, are going to require some javascript.

    Hope you have some fun with this, whatever you're planning on doing.
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    :)

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    • Profile picture of the author inetmilionaire
      thanks mojojuju, looks like PHP will be a great way to take my website skills to the next level. Pity about the javascript thing, maybe I can simplify my graphics manipulation requirements, but thats a "wait and see". Also cheers for those extension suggestions, I'll go looking for them now (the link helped, thanks).

      I guess I better go to Amazon and get me a good PHP book - I'm sure there'll be a dummy's guide there...

      Best regards,

      INM

      PS: Still happy to read others opinions in case there is more to say?





      Originally Posted by mojojuju View Post

      PHP is certainly a good server side component to doing the kinds of graphics stuff you mention. There is an ImageMagick extension for PHP which can do a lot of neat image manipulation stuff.

      PHP also works well with the GD library as another way of producing or modifying images on the server.

      Here's a PHP class to produce charts. I haven't played around with it yet, but that page shows some nifty looking charts using PHP and the GD library.

      Some of the other stuff you mention, like the thing about moving the cards around, are going to require some javascript.

      Hope you have some fun with this, whatever you're planning on doing.
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  • Profile picture of the author wayfarer
    Just remember, all PHP processing stops by the time anything hits your browser. Anything that comes after everything has been served to the browser will need to be manipulated with JavaScript if it's going to do anything.

    Of course, you could use proprietary technologies like Java or Flash also, since these are both able to open files like images and manipulate them. PHP and other server-side programming languages are not interpreted by the browser, although they can be used to generate client-side scripts (or anything else that is outputted to the browser).
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    I build web things, server things. I help build the startup Veenome. | Remote Programming Jobs
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  • Profile picture of the author unsmashed
    I would recommend C# and ASP.NET coupled with a solid understanding of HTML & CSS. http://www.w3schools.com is a great resource to start with.
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  • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
    MooTools can do some crazy stuff. It's a Javascript platform.
    There are some others that are cool too that allow the sort of
    development you're talking about. Drag'n'drop stuff.

    Of course you can learn to do it from scratch...
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnny12345
    Using Flash with ActionScript might be a good option. You could also use Adobe Flex.

    Johnny
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