Open Flash Chart is built using Adobe Flex.

To compile and build it you need to download and install Flex 3 SDK. Let me repeat, you ONLY need the free, open source SDK. Don't bother with anything else.

Important: When this is installed search your PC for 'msvcr71.dll' and copy this file to your flex bin directory. This will be somewhere like C:\Program Files\Adobe\flex_3\bin\ Flex 3 caused all sorts of weird errors on my PC until I did this step.

FLEX is a compiler, it takes the ActionScript 3 source code and turns it into a flash application.

Adobe would like you to use their source code editor which I am sure is very nice. But I am poor, so I use the cool flash develop which is open source and is very nice. But it is windows only. For Mac and Linux try Eclipse: google 'eclipse flex' for more info.

Once you have Flash Develop installed browse to the project file: open-flash-chart.as3proj, open this and you should be able to run it. Click on the green run arrow.

If you have problems try the flash develop forums. I didn't write the editor and I have no idea how it works. I treat it like a magic box of treats and when it breaks I get on the forums and ask the experts.

Here is a comment posted on the forums from Greg Barker:

I downloaded the latest FlashDevelop beta and the Open Source Flex 3 SDK and got the following error on build: 
 
Error: null 
java.lang.NullPointerException 
at flash.swf.TagEncoder.defineFontAlignZones(TagEncoder.java:1254) 
... 
... 
Build halted with errors (mxmlc). 
 
I found the fix here: 
 
http://flashdevelop.org/community/viewtopic.php?p=14505 
 
From FlashDevelop.org:  
 
This is a know issue with the opensource Flex SDK: it defaults to an unsupported option related to fonts. 
 
The solution is to add this line in your project's additional compiler options: 
Code: 
-compiler.fonts.advanced-anti-aliasing=false 
 
It now builds without errors for me. Thought this might be helpful for other people.