How to Upload a Meter

Different kinds of meters give different kinds of information.

Meters are a visual representation of where a numerical value sits in a range. The Google Charts Application Programming Interface (API) provides a simple, reliable way to create a meter that is dynamic, customizable and easy to implement. Google also provides a simple chart creation tool that will generate the meter code for you using a visual interface.

Instructions

1. 

   Meters give context to numerical data.

   Go to the Google ChartTool (see References).

2. Select the "Editor" tab and select "Google-O-Meter."

3. Create the meter's needle by selecting the "Data" menu and clicking on "Add a New Data Set." Change the needle's position by changing the data value.

4. Customize the meter by adding labels. Click the "Y-axis" check box under "Options for Google-O-Meter." The meter color can be adjusted under "Additional Style."

5. Copy the generated image tag directly into your web page HTML. The image tag is located in the second box in the right column, under the label "Paste HTML to embed in website."

Tips & Warnings

• If you need the meter to be dynamic, you can use a scripting language such as PHP to insert variables directly into the image tag. If you don't want to do all of that programming, you can use the image tag in conjunction with a cloud database platform such as Caspio Bridge to automatically insert record data into the image tag's source URL.

References

• Appspot: Google ChartTool