Question

I attemtping to use Charts in MVC 3 and asside from the default ChartThemes provided it seems way harder to specify themes. There is no longer a way to edit ChartAreas or access many strongly typed properties (the argument type for chart area is just a string).

Previously you could do something like this:

Old Way

    ChartArea area = new ChartArea {
        BackColor = Color.Transparent,
        AxisX = new Axis {
          Interval = 7,
          IntervalType = DateTimeIntervalType.Days,
          IsMarginVisible = false,
          LabelStyle = new LabelStyle { ForeColor = Color.FromArgb(255, 128, 128, 128), Font = new Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Regular), Format = "MMM dd" },
          LineColor = Color.FromArgb(255, 208, 208, 208),
          MajorGrid = new Grid { LineColor = Color.FromArgb(255, 242, 242, 242), LineDashStyle = ChartDashStyle.Solid },
          MajorTickMark = new TickMark { LineColor = Color.Transparent, Size = 4.8f }
        },
        AxisY = new Axis {
          IntervalAutoMode = IntervalAutoMode.VariableCount,
          LabelStyle = new LabelStyle { ForeColor = Color.FromArgb(255, 128, 128, 128), Font = new Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Regular) },
          LineColor = Color.Transparent,
          MajorGrid = new Grid { LineColor = Color.FromArgb(255, 242, 242, 242), LineDashStyle = ChartDashStyle.Solid },
          MajorTickMark = new TickMark { LineColor = Color.Transparent, Size = 0.8f }
        },
        Position = new ElementPosition { Height = 90, Width = 99, X = 0, Y = 10 }
      };

New Way

Chart chart = new Chart(width: 400, height: 200, theme: ChartTheme.Yellow)
                .AddSeries(
                    chartType: "line",
                    xValue: dates.ToArray(),
                    yValues: data.ToArray(),
                    chartArea: someString)

The chart area data is now just a string and you have chart themes are a string and there are a few defaults.

This seems like a massive step backwards? Am I missing something fundamental?

Answer 1

I agree the Charts helpers is very basic.
Dundas charts provided a better way of doing things.

Microsoft acquired Dundas Data Visualization Intellectual Property in April 2007 and is integrating this technology in different Microsoft products since then.

These still sends images
a better alternative is HighCharts which is build on javascript.