Charting for WinForms 3.5

MindFusion has released a new version of its charting component for WinForms. Here is an overview of the new features:

Mouse Dragging in Pies
You can click on the border between any two pieces in a pie chart and drag it to change the values of those pieces. The sum of the values for the two pieces stays the same.

Support for Undefined Values
If your data contains null, double.NaN or other data that is not defined you have three ways to handle it – ignore it, replace it with 0 or with the average of the two neighbouring values. Use the HandleEmptyValue property to choose how undefined values are handled.

ToolTips
All chart types support tool tips. Area charts can show a different tooltip for the region between each two values.

Tool tips in a 3D cylinder chart.

Tool tips in a 3D cylinder chart.

Themes
Chart themes are represented by XML files that can be saved and loaded with the SaveTheme and LoadTheme methods. At your disposal is a special theme editor tool that helps you create, edit and save themes fast and easy.

Major and Minor Axis Ticks
Axis ticks are drawn more precisely now – you can draw major and minor ticks. The count of minor ticks is customizable. You can set the pen and length of both ticks. Ticks are supported for all chart axes.

Miscellaneous
Hit testing has been greatly improved. All chart types support the DataIndex and SeriesIndex properties, which let you know the exact location of the hittMindFusion has released a new version of its charting component for WinForms. Here is an overview of the new features:

Mouse Dragging in Pies
You can click on the border between any two pieces in a pie chart and drag it to change the values of those pieces. The sum of the two piece values stays the same.

Support for Undefined Values
If your data contains null, double.NaN or other data that is not defined you have three ways to handle it – ignore it, replace it with 0 or with the average of the two neighbouring values. Use the HandleEmptyValue property to choose how undefined values are handled.

ToolTips
All chart types support tool tips. Area charts can show a different tooltip for the region between each two values.

Themes
Chart themes are represented by XML files that can be saved and loaded with the SaveTheme and LoadTheme methods. At your disposal is a special theme editor tool that helps you create, edit and save themes fast and easy.

Major and Minor Axis Ticks
Axis ticks are drawn more precisely now – you can draw major and minor ticks. The count of minor ticks is customizable. You can set the pen and length of both ticks. Ticks are supported for all chart axes.

Major and minor axis ticks in a scatter chart.

Major and minor axis ticks in a scatter chart.

Miscellaneous
Hit testing has been greatly improved. All chart types support the DataIndex and SeriesIndex properties, which let you know the exact location of the hi value in the arrays with data values for the chart. There are also other new and improved features regarding the hit testing of a chart.

Some changes were necessary to keep the API simple and elegant – we have renamed several existing properties – please check the documentation.

Read more about the new features at the Charting for WinForms forum.

The trial version is available for direct download from this link:

Download MindFusion.Charting for WinForms 3.5

Technical support is available at the forum, help desk or at e-mail support@mindfusion.eu. All inquiries are answered within hours of being received.

About MindFusion.Charting for WinForms: a professional programming component for WinForms, which lets you create remarkable charts fast and easy. The tool supports all major chart types – line, pie, radar and bar – and numerous variations of them – column, area, bubble, polar, doughnut etc. 3D charts are supported as well.

Charting for WinForms supports a rich user interaction model with features like zoom, hit testing, drill down, mouse dragging and more. You can use delegates to present mathematical functions, undefined values are also acceptable. Values can be data arrays or retrieved through a database.

The appearance of each chart is fully customizable. The control offers strong design-time support with custom collection editors and chart wizards. At your disposal is a set of predefined appearance themes and a theme editor tool. A full list of the features can be read here.

Charting for Silverlight 1.2

We have released Charting for Silverlight 1.2 with the following new features:

Styles and Themes

The appearance of each chart element – axis, legend, series – is defined by a style. Each ChartTheme is a collection of styles. Charting for Silverlight 1.2 lets you:

  • create themes based on the appearance of an existing chart
  • create themes with the ThemeEditor tool
  • save themes to XML files
  • load themes from XML files
  • use a number of predefined themes.

You can read detailed instructions on how to save, load and edit themes in the “Working with Themes” tutorial.

The green theme applied at a bar chart in Silverlight.

The green theme applied at a bar chart in Silverlight.

Better Design Time Support

Charting for Silverlight lets you now edit all collection properties – like series, legends and brushes – in the property grid. In addition we have added converters that let you edit label and data collection in XAML.

Axis Intervals

The new AxisSettings.IntervalCount property lets you specify the count of intervals at the numeric axis. When IntervalCount is set, the Interval property is not considered and the axis is calculated based on AxisSettings.Min, AxisSettings.Max and AxisSettings.IntervalCount.

A bar chart with two Y-axes.

A bar chart with two Y-axes.

API Changes

There are a number of changes in the control’s API mainly the type of some properties that were collections is changed to accommodate the new design-time features. Check the “What’s New in This Release” section in the control’s documentation for further details.

You can find out more about the new release at the news page in the Charting for Silverlight section on our forum. The trial version is available for download from here:

Charting for Silverlight 1.2 Trial Version Download

You are welcome to contact us with any questions, problems or inquiries about the control or any other of our products. You can use the discussion board, the help desk or the contact form. MindFusion has always put special emphasis on providing excellent customer support and we usually answer your questions within hours of receiving them.

About MindFusion.Charting for Silverlight: A programming component that combines powerful charting capabilities with a simple API and easy use. Among the features of the control are fully customizable grid, multiple legends, positive and negative values on all chart axes, second X and second Y axis, gauges and many more – read them here.

The control provides detailed documentation and many different samples that show how to customize it. It supports all major chart types – bar, line, radar and pie, as well different modifications of them – column, doughnut, polar, area charts etc. Licenses are counted per user, distribution is royalty free. Each license guarantees full technical support. The source code is also available.

Diagramming for ASP.NET MVC 1.4

We have just released a new version of the diagramming component for ASP.NET MVC. The new release contains new types of nodes, a new layout algorithm, styles, themes and more. Here are the details:

Table Nodes

Table cells can display text and/or image. The cells, columns and rows of a table have customizable style, image, text alignment and extents. The number of cells in a table’s grid can be changed programmatically. Tables with many rows can be scrolled.

Container Nodes

Container nodes contain other diagram nodes. When a container is moved, its children are moved too. Containers can be nested within each other to unlimited depth. They can be folded and unfolded. Nodes inside a container can be linked both inside and outside of it.

Container Nodes

Container Nodes

Styles and Themes

Instances of the new DiagramItem.Style class can be used to set the appearance of items as a single unit. If the Style of an item does not define value for one of its attributes, it is looked up in the styling hierarchy – in the Style of the diagram, in the current Theme or the set of default styles defined for each item class.

The “Styles and Themes” section in the online documentation provides useful team on how to use these new features.

The Slate Theme

The Slate Theme

Shadows

Diagram items can have shadows with customizable shadow color and offset.

One-way Layout

The OneWayLayout class ensures that links enter into nodes from the same direction and exit from the opposite side. If the graph contains cycles some links bend around their nodes to keep the enter/exit direction consistent. The algorithm aims to minimize the number of such links.

One Way Layout

One Way Layout

Parallel layouts (on server side)

The .NET 4 version of MindFusion.Diagramming takes advantage of the Task Parallel Library (TPL) to enable parallelism on the different layout algorithms. Set the EnableParallelism property on the Layout class to true to enable arranging different subgraphs on different threads to possibly improve performance on multiprocessor systems.

Preserve order in tree layout (on server side)

The Balance property of TreeLayout can be set to Preserve to keep the original geometric order of child nodes when arranging them under their parent. This can be used to arrange tree branches in a specific order by first positioning them in increasing horizontal or vertical positions.

More information about the new release is posted at the forum. You can download the trial version of the component from the link below:

Download MindFusion.Diagramming for ASP.NET MVC 1.4

About Diagramming for ASP.NET MVC Control: It is a multipurpose diagramming tool that consists of two parts: a .NET class library running on the server and a client side control implemented in JavaScript. The server side .NET library implements a flow-diagramming object model that lets you define structures such as trees, flowcharts and graphs. Every element in the diagram is easily accessible and the whole diagram is rendered as part of an HTML page by just calling the DiagramView extension method.

On the client the diagram is rendered by a DiagramView JavaScript control that draws its content on an HTML Canvas. The user is able to add nodes and links simply by drawing them with the mouse. There is also a NodeListView control, which lets users create new nodes via drag and drop.

MvcDiagram also supports various automatic layout algorithms that will make every diagram easy to understand and nice to look at. The diagram can also be easily serialized in binary or XML format. Exporting is done in a variety of formats including Pdf, Svg, Visio and more. You can read details about the components at the MvcDiagram features page.