The Graph Pane

The first pane is the graph pane. The main feature here is the graph component itself, but there are page panes that hold fields and controls for manipulating various graph and graph object properties. When the user first comes to this pane, the 3d Bar graph is presented by default. The user can select a different Major Graph Type from a dropdown list. When they do, the Minor Graph Type list is changed and the default for the current Major type is set. In addition, a page pane just below these list fields displays the options for the selected major Graph Type. There is also a palette of additional graph properties below the graph. The Axes and Scales panes have not yet been built and the Grid pane needs some work, but the Titles, Object and Location panes are functional. The user must click on an object on the graph to properly use the Object pane.

The Location pane allows the user to move elements on the graph face from their default locations. The elements that can be affected in this way are the titles (Main and Subtitles, Series and Group titles and the Axis titles), the Legend area, the Footnote and the Frame area for the graph image within the graph object. This pane displays both the raw virtual coordinates within the Graph object for the selected element as well as translated "normal" properties (instance variables that are only part of Graphlab) derived using the current graph size. These "normal" properties are automatically recalculated if the user resizes the GraphLab window (which resizes the graph object as well). The user can relocate an element by changing either the virtual coordinates or the "normal" properties. Here we see the footnote moved downward by changing the value of the top property. This changes both the Upper left Y and Lower right Y values to maintain a consistent height value.

If the user selects "Bar Graph" as the Major Graph Type, The window appears like the illustration below. Here the user has clicked on the third group's riser and the properties for that object appear in the Object pane. The user has further selected a Wash effect and beginning and ending colors for the wash to be applied to risers for that group. All properties accessed on this window work on the Windows platform, but the Graph component itself does not support some properties (Pseudo 3D, for example) on the Macintosh platform. In some cases I inform the user of this when they attempt to switch on an option on the Mac, but I haven't tracked all these down yet.

Some options of the graph object are not apparent through usual means in the Property Manager. For example, we can apply a "marker shape" to a group and it will be used as a pictogram for bar graphs. Wash and picture effects applied to that group will fill the marker shape as well.

Marker shapes can also be applied to the groups for a line graph. This graph type shares many options with the bar and area graph types.

Pie charts have a very different set of features. But again, the user can click on an object on the graph and change features for that object as well as change properties of the overall graph itself.

Of course, properties for the background, text items, legend items and graph area can be accessed at any time by simply clicking on the desired item. A locked demo library (which can only be opened using a runtime copy of Omnis Studio) is also available for you to examine.

Pictogram Support

One of the more interesting features of GraphLab is its tools for quickly and easily applying pictures to various parts of a graph. Not only can we apply a picture to the background, frame or legend area on the graph, but we can apply separate pictures to different series of many graph types and then scale those pictures in various ways to add interest to the finished graph.

For example, here we see a bar graph where pictures of a dollar sign have been applied to each of the four series and then scaled to fit the bars:

Separate graphics have to be supplied in the different colors and those files must be in PICT format on the Macintosh and BMP format on Windows. They must also not be nested too deeply within the directory structure of the computer as there is a limit to the length of the pathname.

By using pictures that vary only by the color of the image, we can create interesting composite effects as well. Below we see an area graph with colored dollar signs applied to the different series, but here we have scaled these pictures to the graph frame. The result appears to be a single dollar sign with colored areas:

We can achieve a similar result using a pie chart, but here the pictures are again scaled to fit the pie rather than the background:

In fact, we can even explode a pie slice and the contained picture segment moves with the slice:

Finally, we have a snapshot of a graph created by applying the same bitmapped image to the background, frame and legend area, but all scaled to fit the background. (We could have applied this to ONLY the background and left the picture attribute empty for the frame and legend area, but with the effect attribute switched to picture.):

The set of colored dollar signs in both PICT and BMP formats are included in the package for your experimentation pleasure.