Code On Time: ASP.NET Code Generator

Tuesday, March 10, 2015Print Subscribe

Specifying Titles and Axis Labels on Charts

Every chart that has been automatically or manually defined will display a title. This title will be composed using the row, column, and value fields and their properties that have been specified for the chart. For example, suppose we create a curved line chart on Orders page of the Northwind sample app that uses OrderDate for rows, EmployeeID for columns, and the sum of Freight for values.

Data Field	Tag
EmployeeID	pivot1-col1-top3
OrderDate	pivot1-row1-line-curve-date
Freight	pivot1-val1-sum

The data for the chart can be seen below.

The title states that the chart shows top three “Employee Last Name”. The value is the sum of “Freight” and the rows are grouped by “Order Date”. While the title may reveal all the necessary information, the title can be better. Let’s manually specify the title by adding the following tag. Note that the tags do not need to be on any particular data field, as long as the correct pivot ID is specified. Open the Project Designer. In the Project Explorer, switch to the Controllers tab and double-click on Orders / Views / grid1 / EmployeeID data field node.

Add the highlighted tag:

Data Field	Tag
EmployeeID	pivot1-col1-top3 pivot1-title:"Sum of Freight By Employee"
OrderDate	pivot1-row1-line-curve-date
Freight	pivot1-val1-sum

Save the data field and regenerate the app. When the page comes up in your browser, navigate to the Orders page. Note that the new title has been applied.

The new title will also be displayed above the chart data.

By default, the axes do not have a title applied. One can use the “haxistitle” or “vaxistitle” properties to manually specify a title for the horizontal or vertical axis, respectively. Let’s specify the following axis titles:

Data Field	Tag
EmployeeID	pivot1-col1-top3 pivot1-title:"Sum of Freight By Employee"
OrderDate	pivot1-row1-line-curve-date pivot1-haxistitle:"Order Date"
Freight	pivot1-val1-sum pivot1-vaxistitle:"Freight"

The new chart will display the specified labels on each axis.

The chart data will not be changed.

Labels: Application Builder, ASP.NET, ASP.NET Code Generator, Charts, Code Generator, Designer, Features, Tips and Tricks, Touch UI, Tutorials, User Interface, Web App Generator, Web Application Generator

Saturday, March 7, 2015Print Subscribe

Bar Chart Type

The “bar” chart type renders horizontal bars for each row of data. One use case would be to quickly compare records grouped by lookup values. For example, it can be used to show the number of orders made with each employee on the Orders page of the Northwind sample app. The chart reveals that “Peacock” is the most active employee.

To use “bar” chart type, add the keyword “bar” to any “pivot-” tag, and make sure that it is separated with hyphens (-).

Data Field	Tag
EmployeeID	pivot1-row1-bar

Here is the data for the above graph:

Hovering over or clicking on a single bar will reveal the data behind that bar.

When multiple values are specified for each row, a bar will be rendered for each value in a different color.

Data Field	Tag
EmployeeID	pivot1-row1-bar
ShipVia	pivot1-col1

Multiple columns of data can be seen in the table below.

Each row can also be displayed as a single bar, with values stacked on that bar, by using the “barstacked” chart type.

Data Field	Tag
EmployeeID	pivot1-row1-barstacked
ShipVia	pivot1-col1

Labels: ASP.NET Code Generator, Charts, Touch UI, Tutorials, User Interface, Web Application Generator

Thursday, March 5, 2015Print Subscribe

Area Chart Type

The “area” chart type is useful for showing change in a value over time. For example, it can show how the number of orders in the Northwind database changes by the order date. To use “area” chart type, add the keyword “area” to any “pivot-” tag, and make sure that it is separated with hyphens (-).

Data Field	Tag
OrderDate	pivot1-row1-date-area

The data for the chart can be seen below.

Note that the chart above uses “-date” keyword. This keyword will direct the server to try several pivots with varying date group sizes and select the best fitting chart. An alternative definition to define a chart that looks exactly like the one above would look like the following:

Data Field	Tag
OrderDate	pivot1-row1-year-area pivot1-row2-month

Discrete points can be clicked on to reveal the row, column, and value for that data point.

This chart type is also effective for showing multiple values on the same chart. The example chart below shows the frequency of orders made with each shipper over time. It uses order date for the rows, and the shipper company name (ShipVia) as the columns.

Data Field	Tag
OrderDate	pivot1-row1-year-area pivot1-row2-quarter
ShipVia	pivot1-col1

The data for the graph above can be seen here:

By default, the values are shown independently. You can choose to stack the values cumulatively by using the “areastacked” tag instead.

Data Field	Tag
OrderDate	pivot1-row1-year-areastacked pivot1-row2-quarter
ShipVia	pivot1-col1

Labels: Application Builder, ASP.NET Code Generator, Charts, Features, Touch UI, Tutorials, User Interface