Hide gauge indicator/needle when expression is null.

[#1]

I'm trying to hide/show the indicator of a gauge chart depending on what the expression calculation results in. The min val of the gauge is 0 (as in 0 %) and max val is 100 (as in 100 %). The gauge chart shows how many activities of a certain type that started in time.

If 3 of 4 activites started in time the indicator will point at 75 %.

If 0 of 4 activities started in time the indicator will point at 0 %.

But if there are no activities of the certain type, i.e. 0 of 0 activities started in time, I want to hide the indicator since it would be incorrect to say that 0 activities started in time. The result is actually null.

I use a macro to hide/show the indicator:

 set chart = ActiveDocument.GetSheetObject("CH616")
 set props = chart.GetProperties
 set gaugeSettings = props.ChartProperties.GaugeSettings
 gaugeSettings.GaugeShowIndicator = false
 chart.SetProperties props

The problem is that I can't find a way of reading the expression result in the macro. I should need something like the bold text below:

if chart.getexpression("ActivitiesStartedInTime").value = null() then

     gaugeSettings.GaugeShowIndicator = false

else

     gaugeSettings.GaugeShowIndicator = true

end if

Is there a way of doing this or is it possible to achieve what I want with another approach?

[jonathandienst]

Hi

It is better to use the conditional show feature to selectivly show or hide a sheet object. This works equally in all clients, whereas macros are client sensitive; and the conditional show operates automatically without needing to be triggered.

Go to Properties | Layout for the guage. Select Conditional and enter the following expression in the Conditional Show box:

=If(IsNull(<your guage expression here>), 0, 1)

Hope that helps

Jonathan

[#3]

Hi,

The conditional show on the entire gauge object works fine - thanks! - but it doesn't really fulfill what I want to achieve. The end users would probably be quite confused when the entire gauge is missing. I don't think they would interpret that as 0 actions, but rather as "something has gone wrong here".

I wish there was a conditional show on the indicator itself...

However, if I add a text object that is shown when the gauge is hidden I could inform the user about the 0 actions there. If I don't get any other suggestions on how to solve this problem I will likely go for that solution.

Thanks Jonathan!

Sara

[kji]

You can use the "Calculation Condition" found on the "General" tab of the chart properties, this will show a text instead of the Gauge ( defaults to "Calculation condition unfulfilled" but that can be changed under "Error Messages..." button on the same tab.

[#5]

Of course! Thanks for your comment, Johan! The calculation condition solution is much more stylish.