1 # D3

     2 

     3 **D3** is a small, free JavaScript library for manipulating HTML documents

     4 based on data. D3 can help you quickly visualize your data as HTML or SVG,

     5 handle interactivity, and incorporate smooth transitions and staged animations

     6 into your pages. You can use D3 as a visualization framework (like Protovis),

     7 or you can use it to build dynamic pages (like jQuery).

     8 

     9 ### Browser Support

    10 

    11 D3 should work on any browser, with minimal requirements such as JavaScript

    12 and the [W3C DOM](http://www.w3.org/DOM/) API. By default D3 requires the

    13 [Selectors API](http://www.w3.org/TR/selectors-api/) Level 1, but you can

    14 preload [Sizzle](http://sizzlejs.com/) for compatibility with older browsers.

    15 Some of the included D3 examples use additional browser features, such as

    16 [SVG](http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/) and [CSS3

    17 Transitions](http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-transitions/). These features are not

    18 required to use D3, but are useful for visualization! D3 is not a

    19 compatibility layer. The examples should work on Firefox, Chrome (Chromium),

    20 Safari (WebKit), Opera and IE9.

    21 

    22 Note: Chrome has strict permissions for reading files out of the local file

    23 system. Some examples use AJAX which works differently via HTTP instead of local

    24 files. For the best experience, load the D3 examples from your own machine via

    25 HTTP. Any static file web server will work; for example you can run Python's

    26 built-in server:

    27 

    28     python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8888

    29 

    30 Once this is running, go to: <http://localhost:8888/examples/>

    31 

    32 ### Development Setup

    33 

    34 This repository should work out of the box if you just want to create new

    35 visualizations using D3. On the other hand, if you want to extend D3 with new

    36 features, fix bugs, or run tests, you'll need to install a few more things.

    37 

    38 D3's test framework uses [Vows](http://vowsjs.org), which depends on

    39 [Node.js](http://nodejs.org/) and [NPM](http://npmjs.org/). If you are

    40 developing on Mac OS X, an easy way to install Node and NPM is using

    41 [Homebrew](http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/):

    42 

    43     brew install node

    44     brew install npm

    45 

    46 Next, from the root directory of this repository, install D3's dependencies:

    47 

    48     make install

    49 

    50 You can see the list of dependencies in package.json. NPM will install the

    51 packages in the node_modules directory.