Question

I’ve created a nice chart but there’s one thing missing. I’d like to be able to set a text somewhere in it. The optimal solution would be e.g. the current date smacked in huge yellow letters right in the middle of my graph.

I’ve googled for such a thing but none of the links (proof that I’ve googled #1, proof that I’ve googled #2) gave any hints on whether it’s possible or not. In fact, the mock-up image in the second link would be something for me if the descriptions and arrows weren’t drawn afterwards in an image processor.

NB. It’s not a report at all. It’s just a chart – a single, lonely chart – that displays values of a couple of series. I get to control the appearance, the legend etc. However, I’d like to put a floating text object (DIV formatable by CSS would be perfect), sprite, overlay, call it whatever you’d like, that will get its value from a given field (e.g. the current date).

And if I can position it freely anywhere over the graph, that’d be even “perfecter” but I’d settle for placement on form “top-right” or such. Alternatively, if there’s an option to combine two “views” on top of each other or anything like that (I’m beating around the bushes with this).

Is that achievable and if so how?

Answer 1

Right, I’ve had a play, a good dig around with the SDK, a bit of a google and this is the best I can come up with.

I know how to place text at arbitary positions on the chart, but only with static text, e.g. I don’t know how to bind the text dynamically to anything – I suspect this is more to do with CRM than Charts, I couldnt find much documentation for CRM and Charts.

So I’ve found that TextAnnotation allow you to bascially place text wherever you like. This is contained within theAnnotations collections.

For example:

<Chart>
  ...
  <Annotations>
    <TextAnnotation Text="This is an annotation" Name="TextAnnotation1" X="20" Y="50">
    </TextAnnotation>
  </Annotations>
  ...
</Chart>

So important to note that the position of the TextAnnotation is relative, e.g. the annotation will appear 20% of the width of the chart from the left. 0,0 is the top left corner. The MSDN has some more detail on positioning.

So I can create a chart like this:

HELLO WORLD! is the annotation.

Using this xml:

<Chart Palette="None" PaletteCustomColors="55,118,193; 197,56,52; 149,189,66; 117,82,160; 49,171,204; 255,136,35; 97,142,206; 209,98,96; 168,203,104; 142,116,178; 93,186,215; 255,155,83">
  <Series>
    <Series ShadowOffset="0" IsValueShownAsLabel="True" Font="{0}, 9.5px" LabelForeColor="59, 59, 59" CustomProperties="PieLabelStyle=Inside, PieDrawingStyle=Default" ChartType="pie">
      <SmartLabelStyle Enabled="True" />
    </Series>
  </Series>
  <ChartAreas>
    <ChartArea>
      <Area3DStyle Enable3D="false" />
    </ChartArea>
  </ChartAreas>
  <Legends>
    <Legend Alignment="Center" LegendStyle="Table" Docking="right" IsEquallySpacedItems="True" Font="{0}, 11px" ShadowColor="0, 0, 0, 0" ForeColor="59, 59, 59" />
  </Legends>
  <Titles>
    <Title Alignment="TopLeft" DockingOffset="-3" Font="{0}, 13px" ForeColor="0, 0, 0"></Title>
  </Titles>
  <Annotations>
    <TextAnnotation Text="HELLO WORLD!" Font="Stencil, 15.75pt, style=Bold, Italic, GdiCharSet=0" Name="TextAnnotation1" X="20" Y="50" ForeColor="Orange">
    </TextAnnotation>
  </Annotations>
</Chart>

If that doesnt achieve your requirements I would suggest having a look at an SSRS report or some other custom piece IFramed into the dashboard.