RaphaelJS: Graphics and Visualization on the Web - Softcover

Wilson, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1449365361 ISBN 13: 9781449365363

Publisher: O'Reilly Media, 2013

Synopsis

Create beautiful, interactive images on the Web with RaphaëlJS, the JavaScript library that lets you draw Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) right in the browser. With this concise guide, you’ll quickly learn how to paint the screen with shapes and colors that you can turn into lively, animated graphics and visualizations.

Author Chris Wilson (Time.com) shows you how to create Raphaël objects and manipulate them with animation, transformations, and other techniques, using just a few lines of code. Packed with working examples, sample code, and cool hands-on projects, RaphaëlJS is ideal for new and experienced JavaScript programmers alike.

• Create images that work on browsers new and old, as well as mobile devices
• Start with the basics—shapes, colors, transformations, sets, and text
• Learn how to build custom curves and shapes with paths
• Code animations that move through space, follow paths, or change direction
• Make your artwork come alive through user interaction
• Bind a dataset to a collection of visual objects—the basis of data visualization
• Learn techniques to make your detailed visuals stand out on screens of any size

About this title

Review

Q&A with Chris Wilson, author of "RaphaelJS"

RaphaelJS: Graphics and Visualization on the Web

Q. Why is RaphaelJS an important book for people to read now?

There are two different revolutions happening right now on the Web: An explosion of interest in design and a renaissance in data science and visualization. RaphaelJS, a Javascript library that allows one to easily draw shapes and images in the browser without plugins, sits exactly at the junction of these movements. While design used to be mainly about using your mouse to sketch out shapes in programs like Adobe Illustrator, what we're seeing now is that designs are increasingly rendered using code-- the core purpose of Raphael. These dynamic graphics can respond to user movements in both browsers and on mobile devices. I also think that graphical programming is a wonderful way for those new to coding to get up and running, since one can immediately start seeing the fruits of his or her efforts on the screen. I wrote this book assuming as little prior knowledge of web graphics and Javascript as possible, and my hope is that it be both accessible to newcomers and informative for veterans who want to get up and running quickly.

Q. What will readers walk away with after reading RaphaelJS?

First and foremost, readers will quickly develop the knowledge to make their own graphics on the Web. Given the limitless possibilities of this power, I've also tried to provide a wide variety of full working examples of interactive graphics of the sort that I produce for Time Magazine. The second chapter concludes with a complete working Braille generator, for example, in which users can type in any phrase they like and see it rendered in dots. Later on there are dynamic maps and a to-scale baseball diagram. Readers will also come away with an understanding of the mechanics of how the browser renders shapes, which will make it much easier to understand more advanced visualization kits like Snap and d3.

Q. What’s so exciting and important about Graphics and Visualization on the Web?

As a journalist, I see daily examples of how visual storytelling is revolutionizing the profession. Even as the business of journalism is perpetually in trouble, there is tremendous demand for people who can tell their stories visually.

About the Author

Chris Wilson is a journalist and developer at Time.com. Prior to joining the magazine, he was a "visual columnist" at Yahoo News and a senior editor at Slate, where he founded Slate Labs, which won the 2010 Ad Age Media Vanguard Award. He is a 2005 graduate of the University of Virginia and lives in Washington, D.C.

Edition details

• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1449365361
• ISBN 13: 9781449365363
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 122