Selecting a Type of Web Presentation

The type of Web presentation that you choose to generate depends on several factors such as the type of graphs that you need, the operating environment in which you want to generate your presentation, and the operating environments in which you plan to deliver your Web presentation.

To determine which type of Web presentation you need, consider the following questions:

Which type of graph you need to produce is determined by the structure of your data and the information that you need to convey to your audience. For example, treeview diagrams and bar charts convey very different types of information. If you need to create a Web presentation that includes graphics that are produced by one of the SAS/GRAPH procedures, then you need to use one of the device drivers that supports that procedure. Assuming that you know which type of graph you need, then you can determine which device drivers or macros you can use.

How is the graphical output produced? lists the procedures that are supported by each device driver and the diagrams that are produced by each macro.

For example, if you need a radar chart, you can use the ACTXIMG, ACTIVEX, or JAVAMETA driver (as well as other drivers). Which device driver you choose depends on what additional features (such as interactive capabilities) you need and on how you plan to deliver your Web presentation.

If you need to graph hierarchical relationships, consider using the DS2TREE macro to generate a treeview diagram. If you need to show relationships that are not hierarchical or if you need to show the relative affinity of the relationships, then consider using the DS2CONST macro to generate a constellation diagram.

The following table shows, for each type of Web presentation, what features are available to a viewer when viewing the presentation in a browser. You can see from the table that presentations that involve a Web executable, such as Java applets or the ActiveX control, enable interactive manipulation via pop-up menus. Presentations that use GIF, JPEG, and PNG files provide static images with no interactivity besides pop-up data tips and drill-down links.

After you have determined which device drivers or macros you can use, you then need to determine which extra features you need in your Web presentation. For example, you might not want or need to give your audience the ability to subset the graph's data or change the graph from a bar chart to a pie chart.

The following table shows which features are supported for each device driver or macro.

Data tips and drill-down links for ACTXIMG are supported for output from GCHART, GPLOT (except for high-low plots), GBARLINE, and GRADAR.

The pop-up menus available with the JAVA and ACTIVEX device drivers typically enable your audience to change many aspects of the graph such as changing chart types, subsetting data, changing the variable used as the response variable, turning data tips on or off, or changing the colors used the graph. Static graphs do not offer any of these interactive features. Web presentations that use the JAVAMETA driver might enable a zoom control, and page selection and slide show controls for presentations that include multiple images.

To view your Web presentation, your audience must view the presentation through one of the supported browsers. For a list of supported browsers, refer to the SAS Web site Install Center at

http://support.sas.com/documentation/installcenter

Select the System Requirements link for the appropriate operating system environment and search for the section about viewing HTML pages created for Java and ActiveX.

It is recommended that graphs be displayed on a device that has at least 16-bit color (that is, more than 8-bit, 256 colors).

Depending on how the presentation is generated, there might be additional requirements. The following table shows, for each type of Web presentation, what is required on a viewer's machine besides a supported browser.

Presentations generated with the ACTIVEX driver can be viewed only with Internet Explorer on Windows PCs, and the ActiveX control must be installed locally on each PC.

Presentations generated with the JAVAMETA driver can be viewed in any supported browser and offer limited interactivity, but do not require that a Java plug-in be installed.

If you will be delivering your presentation on Windows only and you want your audience to be able to interact with the graph, then you can use the ACTIVEX device driver. If you will be delivering your presentation to other operating environments, but you still want to use interactive features, then you can use the JAVA device driver. However, the ACTIVEX and JAVA device drivers require that your audience install the ActiveX control and Java plug-in, respectively.

If you want the look of the ACTIVEX or JAVA driver, but do not need the interactive capability or do not want to require that your audience install the ActiveX control or the Java plug-in, then use the ACTXIMG or JAVAIMG device drivers.

If you need data tips, drill-down capability, or limited interactivity such as zoom, but you do not want to require that your audience install the Java plug-in or the ActiveX control, then you can use the JAVAMETA device driver.

If you need only data tips and drill-down capability, then you can use the GIF, JPEG, or PNG device driver.

If your presentation includes graphics that contain a lot of detail, such as a map, and your audience will be viewing the presentation in an SVG-enabled browser, then you might want to use the SVG driver. Your audience will be able to zoom in on the details in the map without degrading the image. See Using Scalable Vector Graphics for more information.