Pie Chart Formatting Question

I am trying to display a series of pie charts on my report. But I can't seem to find any way have each pie chart take up a certain size on the page regardless of how many charts there are in the series. I tried making the area for the charts as big as the page (Attachment 1), but there is a large amount of empty space vertically on the top and bottom of the charts. I can't even seem to top align the charts so at least they would be at the top of the page with the labels. Next I tried limiting the space for the charts so there wouldn't be so much extra space and that works, but only when I have two charts. Attachment 2 shows how I would like the pie charts to display all of the time, with additional pie charts filling in the space below and being the same size as the 2 in the first row. However, when a 3rd pie chart is added (Attachment 3), it shrinks the size instead of expanding to take up more space on the page. How can I format the series of pie charts to look like Attachment 2, so that the pie charts are always the same size no matter how many there are in the series? I am getting errors when trying to upload attachments so I had to use external links.Attachment 1: <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://i57.tinypic.com/i1yxhg.jpg'>http://i57.tinypic.com/i1yxhg.jpg</a>Attachment 2: <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://i57.tinypic.com/2rwrt02.jpg'>http://i57.tinypic.com/2rwrt02.jpg</a>Attachment 3: <a data-ipb='nomediaparse' href='http://i62.tinypic.com/2j2ydkg.jpg'>http://i62.tinypic.com/2j2ydkg.jpg</a>

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Comments

BRM

Do you have these charts in a grid? If not try putting a grid on the page and them put the charts in the spaces of the grid.

mscuoco

The problem is that in BIRT it is just one Pie Chart object that you set a specific height and width on, with each pie chart in the series being generated depending on how many sites there are. So even if I used a grid, I still only have one object to place. I really would like for this report to work regardless of the number of sites. Also making a separate chart for 8+ sites would make it difficult to make changes since I'd have to change all of them each time, in addition to having to be modified if there are new sites added.

BRM

I'm not sure I completely understand but you could put the charts in a section of a table that contained your data, then click "inherit data from container" to provide the data. The table dimensions would "contain" the chart and you would get as many charts as you had sections of the table and only have to format one chart.

mscuoco

I'm still new to BIRT so I'm not sure I really understand what your saying. I tried creating a table and putting my pie chart in it, but I don't see the option to "inherit data from container". Would a simpler option be to just adjust the height of the chart based on the amount of series the chart would have (I couold get that amount through sql)? I started to try this method myself, but I'm not even sure how to reference the chart in a script or where to put it. There doesn't seem to be any context assist, but it doesn't seem to work the same way you reference a row in a table.

GLO_FR

Hi,the [color=rgb(40,40,40);font-family:'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif;font-size:14px;]"inherit data from container" radio button [/color]is here (see snapshot) in the chart dialog box.<div> </div><div>To set the chart size dynamicaly, set some script in the beforeGeneration event of your chart</div><div><pre class="_prettyXprint">function beforeGeneration( chart, icsc ){chart.getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(200);chart.getBlock().getBounds().setWidth(400);}</pre></div>

mscuoco

Thank you for the quick response. The code and screenshot were very helpful. Putting the chart into a table doesn't seem to be working correctly. I think I may need to explain how I have my report setup first. First I have my data set with three columns, Classification, Siteid, and a Total.I set up my pie chart as follows:Category Definition: ClassificationSlice Size Definition: TotalOptional Grouping: SiteidThis creates a series of pie charts showing the breakdown of Classifications for each Site. When I put the pie chart in the table and inherit data from the container, I ended up with many rows (probably the same number of rows in my data set) all showing pie charts that showed 100% of the first classification in the list. Then I tried changing the inherited data to "Inherit Columns and Groups" and adding a group to the table, but BIRT started to throw errors when editing the chart or running the report. Also is there a way to retrieve the number of elements in the chart's Series? I could do it through SQL, but I think it would be much cleaner if I could access the number of pie charts it is going to create directly. Edit: I created an aggregate binding called numSites to get the number of sites so I would know how many pie charts there would be and set the size accordingly, but I can't seem to figure out how to access the binding. Tried this, but it didn't work.var numsites = this.getDataBinding("numSites");

GLO_FR

Here is an example based on The classic model db, made with BIRT 3.7.2 I have a first group which is PRODUCTLINEIn this group, I have a second one PRODUCTNAME. In my PRODUCTNAME group I've an aggregation value which is the sum of the quantity ordered by PRODUCTNAME.I only show in my reports the PRODUCTLINE group with a pie chart. I've only specify one chart and I use the different value inside my groupIt's more or less what you want to do

mscuoco

I'm at version 3.7.1 and can't open the report. Edit: I've tried creating a table with 2 groups as you said, but no matter whether I set the chart to inherit Columns and Groups or just Colums and no matter what I set the Category Definition and Optional Grouping to, I just get many rows of pie charts with 100% for a single category. Is the first grouping is your categories and the group inside that is your series?Then do you set the TableGroups themselves as the Category Definition and Optional Grouping?Should I be using Inherit Columns only instead? Also I've been noticing that the color key on the side shows up for each chart. Is there no way to just have it once on the side like when having one chart with a series?

GLO_FR

You can open the design in a notepad and modify/delete the first lines with the reference to the version.
Save it and try to open it again.
You may probably have a warning message but after that, you should be able to use it.

mscuoco

Thank you, I got it to work. Looking at your report, I was able to see that you create the inner grouping on the table, set that as the category, and most importantly, put the pie chart in the first group's header. Now there are just two more things I need to do.1. I need to display 2 pie charts per line. Before I would just set the option in the Chart Area General Properties, but it ignores that now that the series is handled by the table.2. I'd like to only show the key once per page since the information is redundant and every pie chart will have the same number of categories. Edit: I was able to display multiple pie charts on a line by using a List component instead of a Table and setting the Display to Inline. Still not sure how to get rid of all the redundant color keys that are also taking up a lot of extra space. I would really like it to look like the example in my first post. (Attachment 2: <a class="bbc_url" href="http://i57.tinypic.com/2rwrt02.jpg" title="External link">http://i57.tinypic.com/2rwrt02.jpg</a>)

mscuoco

I have also been experimenting with the idea I mentioned earlier of just using the chart object and dynamically changing its size, but I ran into some problems trying to do reference any variables from the chart's beforeGeneration method. I was trying to create a binding that would give me the number of sites and then reference it there, but it always errors saying that it can't find the variable or binding I'm referencing. I could get around this if I knew how to get the number of elements in a series, but I don't know how to do that either. I would appreciate any help with doing either of those things.

GLO_FR

Hi,

For your first post
The easiest way is to use two charts in a table with two columns. You set the first one with legend and the second without.
You can also use a more dynamic way by using a list component, but is this case you have to write some script to hide or to show the legend dynamically.

For the second post
If you want to use data coming from your dataset in script, the easiest way is to use variables. You've a lot of examples in the forum but you have to define and populate them at the right moment.
In you're case, if you want to set the size on the beforeGeneration event, you may probably need to define your variable in the dataset even (not really sure of that. It need to be verified).

mscuoco

I'm having a problem figuring out where to define the variable so that the beforeGeneration method of the chart will recognize it. No matter where I define the variable, the beforeGeneration fails with an error:"ReferenceError: "numSites" is not defined. at line 13 of chart script:'' (Element ID:8969)" I've tried defining it in the report's initialize, onPrepare, and beforeFactory and on the dataSet's open and fetch methods. But when I try and reference it I get that error. I've also tried making the number of sites a column in my dataset and tryingchart.getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(310*row["sitecount"]);andchart.getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(310*dataSetRow["sitecount"]);in the beforeGeneration method, but I get reference errors for that too. If there was some method to get the number of elements in the series I wouldn't even need a variable, but I haven't been able to find anything.

GLO_FR

Hi, If I've time I'll try to send you a short example

mscuoco

Looking into what you said about the data not being populated at beforeGeneration, I found someone who changed the bounds depending on the amount of rows in the dataset. This is very close to what I need, but I need to base it off the series and not the amount of categories. I tried looking at the methods on the series but couldn't find what I needed.<pre class="_prettyXprint _lang-js">function afterDataSetFilled(series, dataSet, icsc){ icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(310*dataSet.getValues().length);}</pre>

GLO_FR

Hi, so you can do it this way (you first have to use the right serie category or value). For this, gives the serie a name (third tab in the chart wizard)<pre class="_prettyXprint _lang-">function afterDataSetFilled( series, dataSet, icsc ){if( series.getSeriesIdentifier() == "Value" ){ if( dataSet.getValues().length > 12 ){ icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setWidth(300); icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(300); } else if( dataSet.getValues().length > 10 ){ icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setWidth(200); icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(200); } else { icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setWidth(100); icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(100); }}}</pre>

mscuoco

That isn't working for me. dataSet.getValues().length still gets back the number of Category values and not the number of Series values. I set the Value Series field to be "ValueSeries" and then used the following code:<pre class="_prettyXprint _lang-js">if( series.getSeriesIdentifier() == "ValueSeries" ){ icsc.getChartInstance().getBlock().getBounds().setHeight(310*dataSet.getValues().length);}</pre>