|
Creating Appearance Files | PopChart Builder User Guide 4.0.5 |
One very useful feature of PopChart Builder is the option to place multiple graphs in the same PopChart project. Each graph can have its own data, legend, and settings, as you can see in the PopChart image below.
For the most part, using multiple graphs in the same project is pretty straightforward. To place a second graph in your project, all you have to do is click on the Create a Graph button. To add a legend to this graph, simply select the graph and click on the Create a Legend button. You can customize the second graph just as you would customize any other graph.
If you are going to use your PopChart project as an appearance file for PopChart Server Pro, though, it is important that you be aware of each graph's name. You will use the graph names when you change data or settings with the PCScript you send PopChart Server Pro. Thus, it is important that you know the names of the objects in your project, and that you don't give objects the same name.
By default, PopChart Builder will try to give each object a unique name. Usually, the first graph object will be called graph, the next one called graph2, and so on. Text boxes and Legends have a similar naming scheme. You can see the name of an object by selecting that object and then looking at the status bar at the bottom of the PopChart Builder window. The name will be the last piece of information listed, right next to the word Name.
Occasionally, you may find it useful to rename the object. For instance, if your Pie graph is named graph22, you could rename it to pie for easier reference.
2. Select Properties > Graph Properties or right-click on the graph and select Graph Properties.
4. Change the name listed in the box next to the words Object Name.
Important: If you make a template from a project that has multiple graphs, and then try to create a new graph from the template using the PopChart Wizard, you will only be able to customize the settings for the first graph that was created in the project. You will have to customize everything else outside of the Wizard.
One reason you might want to use multiple graphs is to layer one graph over another. This is useful when you want to compare two different data sets with different graph types and/or with different data ranges. For an example of how this might be useful, consider the following PopChart image.
This image might be more interesting and useful if we overlaid the Line graph on top of the Stock graph so that we can make a visual comparison of the data more easily. The next PopChart image shows what this might look like.
Note that we had to make some modifications to the gridlines and scales to achieve this effect. Particularly, we removed bottom scale of the Stock graph so that the two bottom scales wouldn't overlap with each other. Because of this, we also had to change the size of the Stock graph. Also note that we put the scale for the Line graph on the right side of the graph so that the two scales wouldn't overlap.
You will probably find the items on the Alignment menu of the PopChart Builder interface helpful in overlaying graphs, especially the Move to Front and Move to Back items.
|
|
