Visualize data from a mySQL db and display it on an html?

Question

So I'm sure this has come up more than once, but I really don't know where to start.

I'm putting together a simple MySQL database consisting of 4 fields (Date, Checking Account Balance, Savings Account Balance, and Credit Card Balance).

I would then like to visualize this database on an HTML page, via PHP. This will include displaying the records as lists and visualizing some sort of line graph representing my data. I will also include inputs that will allow me to add to the database from the HTML

Question: I've looked at a few methods, but none of them seem intuitive and some of them involve pasting a png of a graph in the HTML (YUCK!). I would like to make it so the user only has to interact with the HTML page.
What is the most straight forward approach at doing this? Is it writing a JavaScript/JQuery, or something I have yet to look into? Also, I don't think this will raise any security concerns since the database servers will be handled locally, if this isn't the case, please say so.

Info:

OS: OSX 10.8
mySQL/PHP servers: MAMPP

Need more?... Let me know.

Answer 1

For graphs, I would use Google Charts ( https://developers.google.com/chart/ ‎). To grab the data, you would use PHP to pull the data from the data base using the mysql/mysqli/pdo functions. ( http://php.net/manual/en/book.mysqli.php )