In order to work with FusionCharts, you should first download a fully functional evaluation version from www.fusioncharts.com. You then need to extract the contents of the ZIP file package. It contains the required files required to build charts including sample applications in all supported languages.

The core library is contained in FusionCharts.DLL file located under Code/CS folder. The FusionCharts directory contains the various types of charts which you can use to build applications. FusionCharts is completely code intensive and you have to create charts only using code.

As regards the text editor, Notepad is sufficient for development purposes. However, I highly recommend you to make use of either Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Basic 2010 Express Edition since you can manage the development of charts easily. I assume that you have installed any one of these tools since the explanations I have covered in this article make use of Visual Studio 2010.