Chart data drill down examples
One thing the chart documentation lacks is examples of drilling down into data. This is critical for making charts that are interesting and fun to interact with. This blog entry includes two examples of drilling down into data.
Example #1
Here's an example that uses the Event object to get a reference to the clicked ColumnSeries. It then drills down into the single ColumnSeries by replacing the chart’s series Array with the single ColumnSeries in the chart. When you click a column again, the chart returns to its original configuration with all ColumnSeries.Example #2
The following example is similar to the previous example in that it drills down into the assets of a fictional person’s net worth. In this case, though, it shows the value of the asset classes for the clicked-on month in the drill-down view rather than the change over time of a particular asset class.This example uses the HitData object’s item property to access the values of the current data provider. By building an Array of objects with the newly-discovered data, the chart is able to drill down into the series without making calls to any external services.
More Info
You can download the documentation
and the source code for these examples.
Of course, these examples are nearly as exciting as what is going on over at Quietly Scheming, but hopefully they will get you started.
Comments
what if you have a variable number of column series? say you might have some project managers looking at 2 projects and some others looking at 10 projects.
Posted by: Karl | April 4, 2007 05:09 PM
If you have a variable number of series, you create the series with ActionScript rather than MXML. This is described here:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/201/html/charts_intro_108_06.html
Is that what you mean?
Posted by: Matthew Horn | April 10, 2007 10:46 AM
I am quite impressed by FLEX's charting and drill-down capabilities.
Is it possible to include this type of chart within other architectures, namely Java Server Pages?
Posted by: Charles Owen | April 8, 2008 02:48 PM
Sure, the Flex charts can integrate with JSPs, just as they can with PHP pages, ASP.NET, etc. What you want to do is communicate with the wrapper -- call methods in the JSP from the Flex app, and vice versa. To do this, you use the ExternalInterface API. Here are some links to get you started:
http://learn.adobe.com/wiki/display/Flex/External+Interface (Getting Started)
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/19_External_Interface_04.html (ActionScript usage)
http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=passingarguments_2.html (wrapper communication in Flex)
Posted by: Matthew Horn | April 8, 2008 03:56 PM