Exploring Chart Creation Options


WebFOCUS Designer enables you to quickly and easily create many different types of charts. You can build charts that use filters, matrix rows and columns, calculated fields, include run-time behavior such as Insight and Auto Drill, and many other customizable features. These charts can be added to a page or workbook with other charts to provide an expanded view of your data.

To create a chart in WebFOCUS Designer, from the WebFOCUS Home Page, on the Action bar, click the Designer tab or Common tab and click Chart. In the Open dialog box, navigate to a data source that you want to use and click Select, as shown in the following image. The following image shows WebFOCUS Designer while creating a chart.

WebFOCUS Designer creating chart

When creating a chart, the WebFOCUS Designer toolbar provides access to general properties, as well as chart-specific features to help you explore and distribute your content and provide run-time enhancements. The WebFOCUS Designer toolbar when creating a chart is shown in the following image.

Designer toolbar when creating a chart

The following table lists and describes the controls that you can access from the WebFOCUS Designer toolbar.

Icon

Description

Application Menu. Opens a menu that includes the following options:

  • Open. Opens an existing chart. When creating a workbook, this option allows you to open another workbook.
  • New. Creates new content in WebFOCUS Designer. This option is not available when the chart is part of a workbook.
  • Save. Saves the current chart.
  • Save as. Saves the current chart as a new file.
  • Export data. Downloads a spreadsheet containing the data in the chart.
  • Export image. Downloads an image of the chart.
  • View Source. Allows you to view the underlying source code of a chart. This enables you to see how the chart is built by exposing the code that comprises it. Specially, it is used by support technicians to help you with debugging charts. Within View Source, you can examine the contents of the procedure in a view only window. Clicking the Export button places a copy of the procedure as a .fex file into your download directory.
  • Close. Close WebFOCUS Designer.

Save. Opens the Save dialog box, where you can save the chart to a specific location in your environment.

Undo. Undoes the previous action.

Redo. Available when you have undone an action. Redoes the last undone action.

Preview. Shows the page in preview mode, allowing you to view how the page will appear when run. To exit the preview mode of the WebFOCUS Designer, click the back arrow.

Thumbnail. Takes a snapshot of the chart to use as a thumbnail on the WebFOCUS Home Page and in the Resource selector when creating a page. A thumbnail is an image of the chart that can be used to quickly identify the component in your repository.

Show option. Allows you to show or hide the chart header, chart footer, or Filter toolbar.

More. Provides options to apply Auto Drill or Auto Linking to the chart, set it to be an Auto Link target, and enable Insight for the chart.

Note: Charts that are part of a workbook cannot be Auto Link targets or run with Insight.

Settings. Opens the Designer Settings dialog box, where you can change the following settings:

  • Preview data. Allows you to choose to show Live data from the data source or generic Dummy data in the canvas at design time when creating a chart.
  • Record limit. When Live Data is selected, allows you to specify the number of records from the data source to display in the canvas at design time when creating a chart. Applying a lower record limit can improve performance when creating content using data sources with a large number of records. However, due to the smaller sample size, the design time preview of your content may not reflect the actual distribution of your full data set as it appears when you run your content.

Help. Launches the online Help content.

When creating a chart, you use fields from a selected data source. Placing a field into a bucket adds that field to the chart, creating, sizing, or styling chart elements accordingly. Fields can be selected from the Field panel, as shown in the following image.

The Field panel includes the Fields tab and Variables tab.

When viewing fields, the menu at the top of the panel allows you to change how the fields are displayed. You can switch between Folder view, which shows your fields organized into folders and hierarchies, and Flat view, which shows a single list of fields in your data source. You can also choose whether to split dimensions and measures into separate sections of the panel and choose whether to show the field titles, field names, or field paths. The Enforce Paths option automatically checks any joins in your data source to ensure that all fields are connected. If a field is used whose table is not joined to another table, Enforce Paths will not allow fields from that disconnected table to be used, ensuring that the request executes successfully.

To add a field to the chart, drag it into a bucket on the Display tab or onto the canvas. Right-clicking a field provides further options, depending on the type of field. These options include the ability to add the field to the chart or filter toolbar, use a dimension field as a measure or a measure field as a dimension, create bins for measure fields, or create a define field using the selected field. You can also create a define using the menu to the right of the Dimensions and Measures sections.

You can drag a field into the Filter toolbar above the canvas to create a dynamic parameter filter for the chart. Click the filter to open it and select default values. 

The Variables tab contains a list of variables and preset filters defined in your data source, as well as default system variables. To add a variable to the chart to use as a filter, drag it into the Filter toolbar.

Adding fields to a chart places them in corresponding buckets that define the information displayed in the chart. Different buckets are available for different chart types. The following image shows the available buckets for a bar chart.

Buckets for a bar chart

By contrast, the following image shows the available buckets for a ring pie chart.

Buckets for a ring pie chart

The ring pie chart uses a Measure bucket that is not used in a bar chart. This is because bar charts use the Vertical and Horizontal buckets for the height and number of risers in the bar charts, as well as for matrix rows and columns. In a ring pie chart, the Vertical and Horizontal buckets are used for matrix rows and columns only, while the number and size of slices in the chart are defined by the Color and Measure buckets, respectively.

Depending on the type of chart that you create, you may see some of the following buckets:

  • Vertical
  • Horizontal
  • Size
  • Color
  • Tooltip
  • Animate
  • MultiPage
  • Measure
  • Detail
  • Geo
  • Group

The Display tab also includes options that you can use to modify the structure of the chart. These options are also different for each chart type. The display options for a bar chart are shown in the following image.

Display options for a bar chart

The menu to the right of each bucket label also provides different options, depending on the bucket. These options include the ability to clear the bucket, split the x-axis for multiple measures, or use measure names in the Color field.

When placed in the Vertical and Horizontal buckets, fields display icons indicating the sort order of the field and provide an option to use the field as a matrix row or column. In the following image, the Vertical bucket contains a matrix row field and a vertical axis measure field.

Chart containing matrix rows

When placed into buckets, aggregate field labels appear in green while sort field labels appear in blue.

You can also right-click a field label in the Display tab to access options pertaining to that field. These options include field format, sorting, and more.

The tabs above the buckets allow you to switch from the Display tab to the Style tab . The Style tab contains a set of options to format the chart. These options include general options, as well as options specific to each chart type. You can use the Quick Access menu to access different sets of formatting options. For example, the following image shows the menu to access different sets of options for a bar chart.

Quick Access menu for bar chart

General options include the ability to change the theme or style sheet, format the chart frame and background, and define sizing and behavior for null values. The other sets of options contain settings for different elements of the chart and settings specific to certain chart types. For more information on these options, see the content about different formatting options and formatting specific chart types.

The current state of the chart appears on the canvas. When you add fields to the chart, either by dragging fields to buckets or onto the canvas itself, the chart on the canvas is automatically refreshed.

The canvas also contains, if enabled in the Show option menu, a Chart Heading section and a Chart Footing section. You can double-click these sections to add and edit the header and footer text for the chart.

When editing the chart header, a text toolbar appears, allowing you to make modifications to the header or footer text including font, size, style, alignment, and color. You can also drag a field from the Field panel into this area to create a dynamic header or footer containing the displayed field value.

Above the canvas is the Filter toolbar. The Filter toolbar enables you to quickly filter your chart with a dynamic parameter for the selected field. To add a filter, drag a field from the Field panel to the Filter toolbar. Click the filter to open the control, allowing you to select filter values for the chart. The selection control changes depending on whether the field is a character field, numeric field, or date field. If no value is selected, all values will be available.

If you right-click a filter, you can set it to exclude the selected values or choose whether to allow one value or multiple selected values. If you filter for all values and then right-click the filter and click Require Selection, the chart will not load until a value is selected.

To see a run-time view of the chart, including behaviors such as tooltips and Auto Drill that are not available in the canvas, click Preview on the WebFOCUS Designer toolbar.

You can change chart types using the Chart Picker. Click a chart type to quickly change to that type of chart. The canvas and the Display and Format panel refresh accordingly. The Chart Picker is collapsed by default. When collapsed, the Chart Picker shows a default set of 14 chart types, as shown in the following image.

You can expand the Chart Picker by clicking the left arrow at the bottom. This reveals an extra set of Business charts and a Custom section containing HTML5 chart extensions that have been enabled in your environment, as shown in the following image.

Expanded Chart picker