Monday, April 26, 2010

ASP.NET Chart Controls Without Web Forms


I started tinkering with the ASP.NET chart controls last week for a project at work, and the samples available from Microsoft are excellent, except they're mostly all using web forms. So I took it upon myself to do a few things:
  • Upgraded the existing samples from .NET 3.5 to .NET 4.0.

  • Added a sample project 'ChartsWithoutWebForms' to show one way to utilize the ASP.NET charts without using web forms at all.

  • Added a sample project 'ChartsWithMVC' to show one way to utilize the ASP.NET charts with the ASP.NET MVC framework.
The basic idea behind the two additional projects is that the chart is rendered as an image, which means you lose some interactive functionality, but my examples show that you can still fake some interactivity.

I also have an example that shows how you might create a dynamic charting system, which is actually what I'm working on now, but the work is venturing into an area where it will be specific to my employer, so I want to release the samples before that happens.

Feel free to take these updated samples and use them as you see fit. Hopefully they will help you out.

You can download the samples here:
http://www.downcastsystems.com/files/ChartSamples.zip