Interactive Legend

[jvl]

Hi.

 

With 3.2 we get Interactive legend, which is a nice feature, but I would not include it by default to all charts. For example if I have a stacked column with 4 pieces stacked on top of eachother and I disable one from the middle I get a gap there. Now how does that help me comparing the charts? If the bars were re-rendered and I the gap would disappear then the columns would be comparable again, it would give me a "cleaned" version of the data but this does not happen. A concrete example would be that you have bar with sales for Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 for two years 2008 and 2009, now disabling Q3 if I wanted to compare sales for Q1+Q2+Q4 on the two different years, but the disabling does not help interpreting the bar as the total height (which is the sum) does not change but there is a gap in between.

 

For line charts this works beautifully since disabling some data will make the comparison easier and allows you to focus on the data you are interested in. Having the chart re-render when disabling line chart would still benefit us in some cases, because sometimes you get one line that throws the scale off so disabling that would help us compare the remaining data with a more appropriate scale.

 

My main problem with the new legend is that the legend takes a lot more space. Some cases the space for the chart is very limited and the chart specially tuned for that space so such major changes as doubling the legend leads to breaking the layout of the page.

 

So my question really is that is there any way to not use the new legend or an alternative way to manage this issue?

 

thanks for answers in advance

Edited October 25, 2010 by jvl

[Guest Basundhara Ghosal]

Hi,

 

Starting v3.2, the legend is interactive. That is, when you click on each legend icon, it hides the data set corresponding to that item.To show the area back, you click on this icon again.

 

In case you wish to display the legends as non-interactive ones, please try setting the value of the attribute "interactiveLegend" in the <chart> element to '0' Please note, in this case it would act globally on the whole chart.

 

My main problem with the new legend is that the legend takes a lot more space.

 

Please try setting the value for the attributes "legendIconScale" and "legendNumColumns" in the <chart> element.

 

For further details on the same, please refer to the link mentioned below :-

Ref.- http://www.fusioncharts.com/docs/?AttDesc/Legend.html

 

I hope this helps.

[jvl]

Thanks for the fast reply.

 

In case you wish to display the legends as non-interactive ones, please try setting the value of the attribute "interactiveLegend" in the <chart> element to '0' Please note, in this case it would act globally on the whole chart.

 

It is not a problem that the chart is interactive, it is just not useful for stacked charts at the moment.

 

Please try setting the value for the attributes "legendIconScale" and "legendNumColumns" in the <chart> element.

 

It is good to know and I will try it, but you see the problem is that consider yourself in my position: I have 200 charts and if I use resources to tweak each of them individually, I may be able to get them to look like they used to. But since all our XML is generated through code, I could add constants to the XML like useOldLegend='1'. If there is anything like this, please let me know.

 

There is a lot of good stuff in 3.2 and I would really like to update, but currently I am unsure due to visual changes that require fixing many of the layouts.

 

Thanks.

[Guest Basundhara Ghosal]

Hi,

 

But since all our XML is generated through code, I could add constants to the XML like useOldLegend='1'. If there is anything like this, please let me know.

 

I am afraid, FusionCharts v3.2.1 does not support the same.

[jvl]

None of the attributes for the legend can be used to fix my issue. There seems to be some sort of grid layout for the legend now and previously it was more like a "flow layout". All the icons line up in columns and that is not something that is important to me, but what it does do is take more whitespace inside the legend. I did not find anything in the docs related to this so I assume there is no way to break the grid.

[Guest Basundhara Ghosal]

Hi,

 

We had to do this to include icons in the legend.

 

As such, I am afraid, there isn't a way to go back, as of now.

 

I hope this helps.

[jvl]

Well I guess all I can do is ask you to consider implementing these improvements to the legend:

 

1) compact mode support - Basically the old legend without interactivity, icons and the grid layout.

2) re-render mode support - If the data is disabled the chart should render in same way as if the data would just disappear from the xml altogether. This way it would be more meaningful for bar charts. I think this could be the default mode of operating as I see no use case for a gap in bar chart (but obviously I can be wrong and maybe there is a legitimate use for it)

 

The interactive legend itself is great and we actually have implemented it before outside of the chart library for some charts by check boxes and ajax. Only difference is that when implementing it outside the chart you do not get the legend for the missing data and it requires a trip to server etc, so having it in the client side is great.

 

Thanks for the help! I got my questions answered

[gburks]

I agree with jvl. The new interactive legend is great, but he has pointed out the same two issues that I have with it.

 

• For stacked bar charts, it does not make sense to hide a legend item and create a gap in the chart. There should be a way to re-render the charts without the gap.
  
• The new legend takes up more space. There should be an easy way to use the old legend, or use the old flow layout without grid or icons.
  

 

Well I guess all I can do is ask you to consider implementing these improvements to the legend:

 

1) compact mode support - Basically the old legend without interactivity, icons and the grid layout.

2) re-render mode support - If the data is disabled the chart should render in same way as if the data would just disappear from the xml altogether. This way it would be more meaningful for bar charts. I think this could be the default mode of operating as I see no use case for a gap in bar chart (but obviously I can be wrong and maybe there is a legitimate use for it)

 

The interactive legend itself is great and we actually have implemented it before outside of the chart library for some charts by check boxes and ajax. Only difference is that when implementing it outside the chart you do not get the legend for the missing data and it requires a trip to server etc, so having it in the client side is great.

 

Thanks for the help! I got my questions answered

[Guest Angie]

Hi,

 

Welcome to FusionCharts Forum!

 

Thank you very much for your valuable feedback.

 

We have taken a note of your suggestions here and added the same in our wishlist.

 

We hope you have a great day!

[jvl]

Hi,

 

Welcome to FusionCharts Forum!

 

Thank you very much for your valuable feedback.

 

We have taken a note of your suggestions here and added the same in our wishlist.

 

We hope you have a great day!

 

Following up on this old issue that I still have with the legend. I found you had answered something I was going to ask about already here: http://forum.fusioncharts.com/topic/7636-chart-has-no-javascript-fallback/ and based on that It seems you know what is going to be in v3.2.2. I would like to ask now if any of this related to the interactive legend is being improved for that release? I still think that the feature degrades the stacked bar charts instead of improving them.

[jvl]

Following up on this old issue that I still have with the legend. I found you had answered something I was going to ask about already here: http://forum.fusioncharts.com/topic/7636-chart-has-no-javascript-fallback/ and based on that It seems you know what is going to be in v3.2.2. I would like to ask now if any of this related to the interactive legend is being improved for that release? I still think that the feature degrades the stacked bar charts instead of improving them.

 

Since you don't reply, I will assume that no improvement is coming.

[Guest Angshu]

Hi.

 

Thanks for your response.

 

To know more about FusionCharts XT(v 3.2.2.), please visit: http://www.fusioncharts.com/docs/?Introduction/WhatsNew32.html

 

You can download FusionCharts XT from: http://www.fusioncharts.com/download/

 

Hope this helps.

[hyder]

Since you don't reply, I will assume that no improvement is coming.

 

I just tried FusionCharts XT(v3.2.2) SR3 stack graph (specifically, MSStackedColumn2D) and the stack still float when you remove a lower level stack

[Guest Sumedh]

 

I just tried FusionCharts XT(v3.2.2) SR3 stack graph (specifically, MSStackedColumn2D) and the stack still float when you remove a lower level stack

Hi,

We have added this feature request in our feature wishlist.

We will update you on this as it will be released.

Thanks for your time.

[jvl]

Hello again,

 

As it has been almost a year of silence on this issue again, I thought I would bump and ask if there is any progress on this or anything at all? I saw this was also suggested in another thread aswell: http://forum.fusioncharts.com/topic/8415-interactive-legend-leaves-ophans-on-chart/ and that is two years ago when you were trying to get it into the next release.

 

It is a shame that such a small issue degrades otherwise brilliant feature. I do have the enterprise license so maybe I should dig into the source code myself one of these years

[Guest Sumedh]

Hi,

 

We have already added this feature to feature wishlist.

 

We will definitely try to implement this feature, if it is feasible.

 

Thanks for your support and time.

[jvl]

Closing in on 4 years with interactive legend making no sense what so ever for these charts. How is that wishlisth item progressing?

[jvl]

The perfect 5th year birthday present for this issue would be to fix it. What do you say?

 

(It is present in 3.8.0)

Edited October 7, 2015 by jvl

[jvl]

No comment?

[Swarnam]

Apologies for the delay.

 

Due to other intermittent features included within the roadmap, there has been a delay in implementing.

 

We are currently working on it. We will keep you posted.

[jvl]

Finally it works! Thanks!