Swivel Hacks

OK, so I have been trying to post Swivel graphs onto a few places that I go online. Some areas are easier than others. However, I have overcome most of the issues with a few hacks. Here is a breakdown of some of the ways to get Swivel graphs onto forums run by VBulletin (OffTopic, SomethingAwful), as well as onto MySpace.

When you get a good Swivel graph, and you want to post it somewhere else you need to click on the "Blog This" button underneath the graph. However, before you click it, you may want to note the graph number on the URL. In this case I will use the example of a government funding graph that looks like this,



and is located at this URL "http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/6140953"

In this case the graph number is 6140953.

OK, next, click the "Blog This" button, which will take you to an interface that will allow you to custom change the graph to fit your page. If you have a black background, you can go under the style options and change the color, etc. Now here is where it gets important. If you are posting to MySpace, you want to have the graph no bigger than 400 pixels wide, so make sure you click that.

Once you get your colors, width, etc. finished, then you can copy the "Embed this graph" information at the top. However, you may need to copy and paste this onto a word document in order to hack the URL. Each time you click "Blog This" you get a brand new code, so don't try to use the one I post below.

'a href="http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/6140953">'img alt="US Government Funding" src="http://www.swivel.com/graphs/image/6236146" style="border: solid 1px #99BA96;" title="US Government Funding" />

If you post to Blogger/BlogSpot, or a weblog like Fark.com, you can use the code straight from Swivel.

However, you may need to hack if you are posting to a forum like OffTopic, SomethingAwful, or any forum powered by VBulletin. You need to take the following from the Swivel code and reformat it. Take the graph number from the original URL you copied (in this case 6140953), and paste it into the following formula at the end of the first line.

[url=http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/6140953]
[img]http://www.swivel.com/graphs/image/6236146[/img][/url]

Then take the second numerical sequence in the "Blog This" code (in this case 6236146 from two paragraphs up) and copy it into the second line of the formula directly above. The resulting formula can be pasted into any VBulletin post and will paste the appropriate graph that is linked to Swivel.

If you want to post to your Myspace page, you need to slightly alter the "Blog This" code by adding some letters into the code. This results in:

a href="http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/6140953">'img alt="US Government Funding" src="http://www.swivel.com/graphs/image/6236146.png" style="border: solid 1px #99BA96;" title="US Government Funding" />

I usually add two breaks (just type "<" "br" ">" without the quotation marks) in front and the term ".png" after the second numerical sequence in the "Blog This" code. Now, you can now drop that whole term into your "About Me" portion of your profile page, or into a blog posting on Myspace.
OK, that is all for me. Happy Swiveling!