How to configure a spec and data separately?
pmackay opened this issue · comments
The docs describe how to make API calls to set the data and then build up the chart configuration. Separately a whole chart can be configured using a Vega spec, which includes a data location.
Is there a way to configure a chart using a Vega spec, but make an API call to independently set the data?
Thanks!
Hey @pmackay, if I understand correctly, there's not a way to load an existing Vega spec into a Vega.lite or Vega.start object. Can you share more about the use case?
The use case is that Airtable has add-on apps, including one to render charts using Vega based on the data in a Base. These are configured with a Vega JSON config that typically has all the config settings except the data source. I would like to recreate those charts in a Rails app!
Sounds like perhaps the best way is to define a separate JSON endpoint that can serve the data from the Rails app and set that as the URL in the config thats passed to the call to Vega.display?
Yeah, you can add a data key to the spec hash directly (spec[:data] = {url: "..."} for a URL) and pass it to Vega.render for Rails (or Vega.display for iRuby) without the need to create a Vega.lite or Vega.start object.
Great, I have this working, thanks for help!