如何处理时间轴/图表的Flex自定义组件？

Question

For my application I need a component (or combination of components) that shows a number of different types of events along a timeline, displays them in different ways as specified and allows you to click/hover along the timeline to add/modify/get details on events.

Basically I want a timeline across the top, always showing a 24hour period, but starting at variable points. I need to have different rows of variable height to display different types of data in different ways. for instance:

• row 1 will display the 'value' attribute as a circle whose diameter reflects value amount and change color based on a 'typecode' attribute.
• row 2 will display a line graph and plot chart based on different numbers (like one chart but with the datapoints as larger dots), and will also chart out trend of following or previous data if it exists.
• behind row 2 will display the same thing but for 5 previous days progressively more transparent
• row 3 will display the number values from row 2
• row 4 will display another type of data, this one with duration, as thick lines from start time to end time. you will be able to click with in this row once to set startpoint of new entry and once to set endpoint to create new entry. onclick..
• row 4 will display color coded squares for a number of different datatypes and hovering will reveal details.

all rows need to share the same timespan, and I'd like to be able to have click/hover events that target the data object/values of the data being displayed.

I also would like gridlines going across the background of all the rows.

At some point I'd like to be able to compress certain areas of the timeline, but I'm not going to worry about that yet.

I'm not sure if I should attempt to extend the flex advanced datagrid, or use one of the several vaguely similar component types I've found online ( http://www.gantt4flex.com/ , http://flexlib.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/docs/index.html?flexlib/schedu ling/), or how best to approach, but I need to get this on its feet fairly quickly.

I have a data model and can come up with whatever data I need no problem (working from sqlite). But I haven't built a component from scratch before and am wondering how to approach something like this.. how to break it down.. and how much I can use already existing components and modify them.

(date selector would be separate)

Answer 1

Take a look at amcharts . This should get you started. Also email them or ask questions on the forums as they answer very quickly.