Vesselin Georgiev's blog

Telerik.Charting in RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q3 2008

Vesselin Georgiev — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 01:20:00 GMT

There is no Telerik.Charting.dll anymore. It is now merged into Telerik.Web.UI. You will no more have to worry about its version and its registration in Web.config or replacing it in GAC when new version is out. Here are the steps you need to take when upgrading your applications from RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX version prior to Q3 2008 to RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX Q3 2008 and later:

� If you have Telerik.Charting installed in GAC (this used to be the default RadControls installer action) replace the following Register directive

<% Register Assembly="Telerik.Charting, Version=2.0.5.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=d14f3dcc8e3e8763" Namespace="Telerik.Charting" TagPrefix="telerik" %>

with this one:

<%@ Register Assembly="Telerik.Web.UI" Namespace="Telerik.Charting" TagPrefix="telerik" %>

You will also need to remove the Telerik.Charting registration from your web.config file. In the <system.web> <compilation> <assemblies> section you will find this line:

Simply remove it.

� If you do not have Telerik.Charting installed in GAC (you use it from the local Bin folder) replace this Register directive

<%@ Register Assembly="Telerik.Charting" Namespace="Telerik.Charting" TagPrefix="telerik" %>

with this one:

<%@ Register Assembly="Telerik.Web.UI" Namespace="Telerik.Charting" TagPrefix="telerik" %>

That is, simply change the Assembly from Telerik.Charting to Telerik.Web.UI. You will also need to remove Telerik.Charting.dll from Bin folder.

In case you have a web application, you will need to remove the reference to Telerik.Charting.

This one-time effort will allow you to upgrade to future versions of Telerik.Web.UI by simply replacing the Telerik.Web.UI.dll without worrying about the fully qualified name of Telerik.Charting and whether the correct version is available in GAC or in the local Bin folder.

RadChart – How to customize databound and auto-generated items?

Vesselin Georgiev — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:07:43 GMT

Imagine you have a databound RadChart and you need to customize the item labels, say you need to combine the values of two fields into a single item label. All you need to do is wire the ItemDataBound event, retrieve the ChartSeriesItem and customize it as per your requirements. You may use the actual data for this, here is an example:

protected void RadChart1_ItemDataBound(object sender, ChartItemDataBoundEventArgs e)
    {
        ChartSeriesItem item = e.SeriesItem;
        DataRowView dataItem = (DataRowView)e.DataItem;
        item.Label.TextBlock.Text = dataItem["FirstName"].ToString() + " " + dataItem["LastName"].ToString();
    }

That was simple, but what about auto-generated axis items? OK, let's start with some background - RadChart allows you to modify it at any stage of the page lifecycle, including events fired as late as Page_PreRenderComplete. And still its axes will be auto-scaled showing the range needed for the data being shown. So, how to take advantage of RadChart's smart axes, but customize their items? Another event comes in handy - BeforeLayout. It is fired after the axis items are created, but before the start of the layout calculations, so the following code will produce Y axis labels with alternating size:

protected void RadChart1_BeforeLayout(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        for (int i = 0; i < RadChart1.PlotArea.YAxis.Items.Count; i++)
        {
            RadChart1.PlotArea.YAxis.Items[i].TextBlock.Appearance.TextProperties.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("verdana", i%2==0?8:12);
        }
    }

Finally - yes, you can use the same approach for the auto-generated legend items :-)

Hope you have fun customizing RadChart.

Visual Studio 2008 Intellisense and Telerik.Charting

Vesselin Georgiev — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:14:17 GMT

By default the RadControls installer adds the Telerik.Charting assembly to the GAC on the machine where the package is installed, as the Telerik.Charting assembly is used by more than one package - RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and RadControls for Winforms. So, let's consider an example -- create a new web site and use at least one control from the suite. When you drag a control from the toolbox Visual Studio will automatically copy Telerik.Web.UI.dll to site's Bin folder. Telerik.Web.UI assembly refers to Telerik.Charting assembly. But as long as Telerik.Charting is in the GAC it will not be copied to the Bin folder. Instead, it will be registered in the web.config file like this:

You are probably guessing the possible issue here -- upon XCOPY deployment there will be no Telerik.Charting.dll on the server, the Telerik.Charting reference is not resolved, so you get this:

Parser Error Message: Could not load file or assembly 'Telerik.Charting, Version=2.0.4.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=d14f3dcc8e3e8763' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

At this time a question pops up - "What charting? I do not use any charts!" You can now remove the reference from web.config file or through the web site property pages and the problem is seemingly solved. Seemingly. You may lose the intellisense in the markup if for any reason you end up with no Telerik.Charting available - on the server or locally on your development machine. This issue seems to appear only in VisualStudio 2008. But, how to fix it? The answer is - always make sure that the referred assembly is provided. In our case - either remove the registration from web.config file as described above AND copy Telerik.Charting to the web site Bin folder or install Telerik.Charting to GAC (which might not be always possible). Note, that upgrading RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX to a newer version means that you need to replace both assemblies - Telerik.Web.UI and Telerik.Charting.

Finally, I have some inside info to share. Starting from Q3 2008, Telerik.Charting will be IL merged in Telerik.Web.UI, so you will never suffer such issues again.

RadGauge for WPF

vgeorgiev — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:39:28 GMT

As announced by Vladimir RadControls for WPF FUTURES suite is out and we already started to get your feedback. Vladimir and Todd have already drawn you attention to RadChart for WPF, so I decided to show you RadGauge -- another product from the same suite.

You wouldn't be surprised to know that RadGauge will allow you to visualize various measurements in completely customizable manner. Here are some of the main features:

Linear scales - RadGauge offers linear scales, the length or the position of the indicator over a line/bar will measure the value. There can be 4 types of indicators - elements, that point to a value along the scale:

Marker - a small shape that can be located around the scale.
Bar - a colored bar drawn around the scale. One of the ends of this bar points to the scale value.
State Indicator - a shape with arbitrary size located anywhere in the scale. If state indicator's value falls into one of the scale ranges then shape is filled with brush of this range.
Numeric indicator - shows its value as a number.

Here is an example - thermometer, created by two linear scales. The Fahrenheit scale has its StartOffset and EndOffset properties set in order to match the values with the Celsius scale.

Radial scales - Values are shown on a radial scale. The layout of the radial scale is set up by four parameters: StartAngle, SweepAngle, Radius and Center.

Besides the 4 indicators available for the linear scales, the radial scales offer another one -- Needle indicator - a shape that looks like a needle with one end positioned at the center of the scale and other end pointing to the scale value.

A Needle, Marker and Bar indicators can point their values to the scale using a movement animation effect. The animation allows the smooth running of an indicator from one value to the next. These indicators can also point their values to the scale using the snap effect.

Some gauge applications require that the indicator clearly shows when there is no valid data currently available. The special "Off Position" tick mark comes in handy in such case. It can be located outside the scale Min and Max values.

One of the must features for a gauge control is "TickMarks". RadGauge provides 3 types of tick marks

Major - specifies the primary value intervals along the whole length of the scale. Major tick marks can have a label. You can specify common properties and appearance of the major tick mark using MajorTick property of the scale.
Middle - specifies the secondary value intervals inside a primary value interval. Middle tick marks can't have a label.
Minor - specifies the third level of the value intervals a inside secondary value interval. Minor tick marks can't have a label.

Sometimes it is necessary to show additional tick marks and labels in particular scale position. Besides the flexible standard tick marks, The RadGauge control provides custom tick marks, which allow you to do it. As well as for the standard tick marks, for the particular tick marks you can specify location and offset of the tick relative to the scale bar.

Here is an example of RadGauge with two scales - the bottom one shows frequency using custom tick marks and the upper one shows bar indicators.

Ranges - gauge elements that represent a continuous set of values along a scale. Every range has maximum and minimum value, and will fire event when indicator enters, leaves or stays in range during specified time - EnterRange, LeaveRange and RangeTimeout.

Finally - another two features I am sure you will like - scale can be reversed and/or logarithmic:

Download RadControls for WPF FUTURES and drop us a line.

Formatting RadChart Labels

Vesselin Georgiev — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:45:00 GMT

Hi everyone,
My name is Vesselin Georgiev and I am a technical consultant here at Telerik. This is my first blog post and it is dedicated to labels in RadChart.
By default RadChart will display the value corresponding to the bar (point, slice) as a label.� But RadChart allows you�to control the label content. This is possible thanks to the DefaultLabelValue property, which has been around for quite some time now. You can use several "special words" in this property -- "#Y", "#X", "#%", "#SUM", "#STSUM", "#SERIES", "#ITEM". They are all listed in�the dedicated help topic . This is all good, but what if I want to further customize this label? OK, let's combine them: DefaultLabelValue="#Y (#%)". This will produce a label like "2314 (34%)". And here is the example:

This is still quite limited, but here comes the best part. You can add your own formatting to any part of the above example. Say, this is all about the money, so convert these numbers to currency. Here you go - DefaultLabelValue = "#Y{C} (#%)".

You have noticed the "{C}" part. That is, you can add any�Standard Numeric Format String inside the curly braces. Let's tune it a bit more - remove the decimals from the amount but specify the percentage with higher precision: "#Y{C0} (#%{#0.###%})".��

�

Yes, there is a second set of curly braces and a�Custom Numeric Format String�inside.

Ah yes, it is now the Y axis that does not show pretty labels. You can use several pre-defined formats through ValueFormat property: "Currency", "ShortDate", "LongDate" etc. And again, you might not quite like them, so why not using your own formatting?� Currency would be fine, but currency with no decimals would be better:

Just set CustomFormat property to another custom numeric format string - "C0".

Finally, how did I get the months along the X axis? RadChart accepts only numeric values and dates should be in OLE Automation date format. You can use DateTime.ToOADate() method to convert them. Set ValueFormat�property to "ShortDate" and define the format through CustomFormat property.�Here is the code for X axis:

    
            RadChart1.PlotArea.XAxis.IsZeroBased�=�false; �
        
            RadChart1.PlotArea.XAxis.AutoScale�=�false; �
        
            RadChart1.PlotArea.XAxis.Appearance.ValueFormat�=�Telerik.Charting.Styles.ChartValueFormat.ShortDate;��
        
            RadChart1.PlotArea.XAxis.Appearance.CustomFormat�=�"MMMM"; �
        
            �
        
            //�Add�the�X�axis�items: �
        
            DateTime�start�=�new�DateTime(2008,�1,�1); �
        
            for�(int�i�=�0;�i�<�6;�i++) �
        
            { �
        
            ����ChartAxisItem�item�=�new�ChartAxisItem(); �
        
            ����item.Value�=�(decimal)start.AddMonths(i).ToOADate(); �
        
            ����RadChart1.PlotArea.XAxis.AddItem(item); �
        
            }�

�

You can find the example here.