Question

Highcharts, Can you change the chart type for drilldowns?

I would like to present a standard “column” chart initially and then drilldown to a “bar” chart, I have tried everything I could think of….

I assumed it would be set in the drilldown code, but doesnt seem to work this way.
As in…

drilldown: {
    type: 'pie',
    name: 'Chart1',
    categories ['1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9','10','11','12','13','14','15','16','17','18','19','20','21','22','23','24','25','26','27','28'],
    data: [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8],
    color: colors[0]
}

Answer 1

I don’t know what have you tried, but you can do it.
Take a look my example.

$(function () {
    var chart;
    $(document).ready(function() {

        var colors = Highcharts.getOptions().colors,
            categories = ['MSIE', 'Firefox', 'Chrome', 'Safari', 'Opera'],
            name = 'Browser brands',
            data = [{
                    y: 55.11,
                    color: colors[0],
                    drilldown: {
                        name: 'MSIE versions',
                        categories: ['MSIE 6.0', 'MSIE 7.0', 'MSIE 8.0', 'MSIE 9.0'],
                        data: [10.85, 7.35, 33.06, 2.81],
                        color: colors[0]
                    }
                }, {
                    y: 21.63,
                    color: colors[1],
                    drilldown: {
                        name: 'Firefox versions',
                        categories: ['Firefox 2.0', 'Firefox 3.0', 'Firefox 3.5', 'Firefox 3.6', 'Firefox 4.0'],
                        data: [0.20, 0.83, 1.58, 13.12, 5.43],
                        color: colors[1]
                    }
                }, {
                    y: 11.94,
                    color: colors[2],
                    drilldown: {
                        name: 'Chrome versions',
                        categories: ['Chrome 5.0', 'Chrome 6.0', 'Chrome 7.0', 'Chrome 8.0', 'Chrome 9.0',
                            'Chrome 10.0', 'Chrome 11.0', 'Chrome 12.0'],
                        data: [0.12, 0.19, 0.12, 0.36, 0.32, 9.91, 0.50, 0.22],
                        color: colors[2]
                    }
                }, {
                    y: 7.15,
                    color: colors[3],
                    drilldown: {
                        name: 'Safari versions',
                        categories: ['Safari 5.0', 'Safari 4.0', 'Safari Win 5.0', 'Safari 4.1', 'Safari/Maxthon',
                            'Safari 3.1', 'Safari 4.1'],
                        data: [4.55, 1.42, 0.23, 0.21, 0.20, 0.19, 0.14],
                        color: colors[3]
                    }
                }, {
                    y: 2.14,
                    color: colors[4],
                    drilldown: {
                        name: 'Opera versions',
                        categories: ['Opera 9.x', 'Opera 10.x', 'Opera 11.x'],
                        data: [ 0.12, 0.37, 1.65],
                        color: colors[4]
                    }
                }];

        function setChart(options) {
            chart.series[0].remove(false);
            chart.addSeries({
                type: options.type,
                name: options.name,
                data: options.data,
                color: options.color || 'white'
            }, false);
            chart.xAxis[0].setCategories(options.categories, false);
            chart.redraw();
        }

        chart = new Highcharts.Chart({
            chart: {
                renderTo: 'container'
            },
            title: {
                text: 'Browser market share, April, 2011'
            },
            subtitle: {
                text: 'Click the columns to view versions. Click again to view brands.'
            },
            xAxis: {
                categories: categories
            },
            yAxis: {
                title: {
                    text: 'Total percent market share'
                }
            },
            plotOptions: {
                series: {
                    cursor: 'pointer',
                    point: {
                        events: {
                            click: function() {
                                var drilldown = this.drilldown;
                                var options;
                                if (drilldown) { // drill down
                                    options = {
                                        'name': drilldown.name,
                                        'categories': drilldown.categories,
                                        'data': drilldown.data,
                                        'color': drilldown.color,
                                        'type': 'pie'
                                    };
                                } else { // restore
                                    options = {
                                        'name': name,
                                        'categories': categories,
                                        'data': data,
                                        'type': 'column'
                                    };
                                }
                                setChart(options);
                            }
                        }
                    },
                    dataLabels: {
                        enabled: true,
                        color: colors[0],
                        style: {
                            fontWeight: 'bold'
                        },
                        formatter: function() {
                            return this.y +'%';
                        }
                    }
                }
            },
            tooltip: {
                formatter: function() {
                    var point = this.point,
                        s = this.x +':<b>'+ this.y +'% market share</b><br/>';
                    if (point.drilldown) {
                        s += 'Click to view '+ point.category +' versions';
                    } else {
                        s += 'Click to return to browser brands';
                    }
                    return s;
                }
            },
            series: [{
                type: 'column',
                name: name,
                data: data,
                color: 'white'
            }],
            exporting: {
                enabled: false
            }
        });
    });

});

Make sure you don’t have a type defined for all your series. Reference