FusionCharts for Flex > Introduction > System Components

Before you actually get involved in coding and start creating charts, It would be a great idea to know the components that make up FusionCharts for Flex.

What exactly is FusionCharts and how does it work?

FusionCharts is essentially a set of Adobe Flash (SWF) files that take in XML data and render charts, graphs and gauges using that data. These charts, graphs and gauges can be viewed in any browser, which has Flash Player 9 or above installed. So, they can work on Windows, Macintosh, or Linux.

How do I load charts and widgets to my Flex solution?

fusioncharts folder contains all chart SWF files. fusionwidgets folder contains all widgets SWF files. Just place these folders in the same folder as your MXML file. If you keep the fusioncharts or fusionwidgets folders in some other locations, you need to specify the paths.

So, what does 'FusionCharts for Flex' exactly consist of?

FusionCharts for Flex comprises of following components:

  • Custom Component :

    FusionCharts.swc  : This file serves as an interface between FusionCharts and Flex. It helps in loading the charts/widgets in your Flex solutions. It is a custom component. Hence, it can be accessed from the Custom group in the Components window.

    It can also be accessed by importing com.fusioncharts.components.* or com.fusionwidgets.components.* classes to the code. The package com.fusioncharts.components.* is required to load 46 charts taken from FusionCharts pack, while com.fusionwidgets.components.* is required to load the 13 widgets (gauges/charts) from FusionWidgets pack.

    FusionCharts and FusionWidgets run on ActionScript Virtual Machine-1 and Flex runs on ActionScript Virtual Machine-2. These two virtual machines do not work collaboratively. Hence, FusionCharts.swc comes into play. It communicates between FusionCharts/FusionWidgets objects and Flex. Moreover, this component also includes a FCChartData class that helps Flex developers to provide chart data through Array, XMLList, and Model data-types.

  • SWF Files:

    FusionCharts for Flex provides a plethora of charts and widgets from it's FusionCharts v3 suite. It presently offers 46 charts from FusionCharts pack and 13 widgets (gauges/charts) from FusionWidgets pack. These charts /widgets come as individual SWF files. These filese are loaded through the FusionCharts custom component (FusionCharts.swc). You don't have to deal with SWF files directly, as they're loaded and rendered by the custom component. You find the SWF files in fusioncharts and fusionwidgets folder of the original download pack's Charts folder. The SWF files are automatically accessed by the custom components if these folders are put in src folder of your solution. If you intend to keep these files in a different folder, you would just need to specify the location of that folder. (1) (2)

  • Package Contents

    Package