Plot.ly is a very handy website for presenting plotted data; the API is really nice and the results are interactive and look nice.
Flask is a nice lightweight Python web framework that make simple data presentation on the web almost trivial and complicated presentation not too difficult. From the Flask website:
Flask is a microframework for Python based on Werkzeug, Jinja 2 and good intentions.
and it is very pleasant to use---the "good intentions" show through.
Obviously, two useful and easy things should be used together; the files here are an example of using them together.
The one file not included in this repository is the file with my
Plot.ly credentials. To use this, you'll need to make a file called
plotly-creds.sec in the same directory as the file
flask-plotly.ps; the format of plotly-creds.sec is:
plotlyUsername
plotlyAPIkey
If you don't have a username and API key, you can get them for free at plot.ly.
If you want to run the local version (by typing python flask-plotly.py) you will also need to install the Flask and Plot.ly
Python libraries by typing, for example:
pip install flask
pip install OrderedDict
pip install --upgrade simplejson
pip install plotly
If you only want to run the Dockerized version, those will get installed during the Docker build process. You'll need a Docker environment, of course, and there is more on that the Docker website and once you have that, you can type:
docker build -t "$USER/flaskly:test" .
docker run -t -d -i -p 5000:80 $USER/flaskly:test
then browse to http://localhost:5000 to see the web page.
The trick to all of this is using the plotly.plotly.sign_in()
function in the right place in the code and with the right
credentials. Everything else is sort of standard, unless you've never
used Flask and Plot.ly and Docker before, then those parts are neat,
too.