General Changes

Producing Graphics Output for the Web

SAS/GRAPH software provides several methods for generating graphics output that can be displayed on the World Wide Web. Most of these methods enable you to create graphs in which the user clicks on areas of the graph to "drill down" to additional graphs or reports.

The ODS HTML statement enables several SAS/GRAPH procedures to produce GIF graphics and a variety of HTML files for creating Web pages with tables of contents, multiple frames, and drill-down functionality.
New device drivers automatically generate various combinations of HTML and GIF files.
The GANNO, GCHART, GMAP, GPLOT, and GSLIDE procedures have new options that provide drill-down functionality with Web output. If a graph is created with drill-down, the drill-down capability is retained any time the graph is replayed using the GREPLAY procedure. (See the individual procedures for details.) In addition, these procedures can generate a special data set that contains area and link information for creating custom HTML files with drill-down graphs.
Graph-N-Go is an interactive application for producing simple or complex graphical representations of data, without writing any SAS/GRAPH code. You can use it for data exploration or for creating presentation-quality graphical images that can be printed or imported into documents. You can also export a graphical image to an HTML file.

Device Drivers

New device drivers automatically generate one or more HTML and GIF files that can be viewed with a Web browser. These drivers provide a quick and easy way to produce output for use on the Web:

The GIF driver generates GIF graphics files from SAS/GRAPH procedures. These files can be referenced in an HTML file and viewed with a Web browser. The GIF driver was available in earlier releases of the SAS System, but in the current release it can be used with the Output Delivery System (ODS) to automatically generate the HTML files needed to reference the GIF graphics.
The HTML driver creates a series of graphs in GIF format and an HTML file that displays them.
The WEBFRAME driver also creates graphs in GIF format and HTML files, but it produces a Web page whose table of contents contains thumbnail depictions of each graph, plus links to the full-sized versions of the graphs.
The GIFANIM driver enables you to use SAS/GRAPH procedures to create GIF animations for your Web pages. The GIFANIM driver was available in earlier releases of the SAS System and has not changed in the current release.

[IMAGE] In Version 8, you can also use the new ACTIVEX and JAVA device drivers. Both drivers can only be used with procedures GCHART, GCONTOUR, GMAP, GPLOT, and G3D, and both must be used with ODS. The ACTIVEX driver generates an HTML file that defines graphics output as ActiveX controls, and the JAVA driver generates an HTML file that defines graphics output as a Java applet. Both the ActiveX controls and the Java applets are interactive when displayed in a browser. For example, they let you change the chart type from a bar chart to a pie chart without reprocessing the data.

Output Delivery System

SAS/GRAPH procedures that generate graphics output support the Output Delivery System (ODS). You can use the ODS HTML statement or special SAS/GRAPH device drivers to produce ODS output. When used with SAS/GRAPH procedures, either method uses a default ODS template to produce HTML files and graphics output that can be viewed with a Web browser.

Long Variable Names

SAS/GRAPH supports long variable names in data sets. Catalog entry names are still limited to 8 characters. If longer names are specified, they are truncated.

SAS/GRAPH Fonts

SAS/GRAPH has added support for specifying long font names that appear in the Charrec window of the GDEVICE procedure.

SAS/GRAPH Colors

SAS/GRAPH has added support for CMYK and HSB (or HSV) color types.

Graph-N-Go

Graph-N-Go is an interactive application for producing simple or complex graphical representations of data, without writing any SAS/GRAPH code. You can use it for data exploration or for creating presentation-quality graphical images that can be printed or imported into documents.

Features That Are No Longer Supported

A few SAS/GRAPH windows are no longer supplied:

PATTERN, AXIS, LEGEND, and SYMBOL windows
GRAPH manager window

A new file requestor window is provided for the Graphics Editor and the Graph window.

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