An extension to unleash the power of Picasso.js - Qlik Community

ArturoMuñoz · ‎2018-07-27

The Picasso.js is an open-source initiative by Qlik. It's a charting library that is designed for building custom, interactive, component-based powerful visualizations.

Until recently, the power of Picasso.js was only reserved for developers. A few weeks ago, our colleague Steven Pressland introduced the beta version of the Picasso Designer Extension, a game changer that takes Picasso.js to the masses making it available for everyone in Qlik Sense.

Picasso Designer for Qlik Sense is an extension to aid building complex charts based on the Picasso.js library without having to write any code or understand the Picasso JSON structure. The extension also provides support for selections against the chart for the expected user experience in Qlik Sense.

For a regular Qlik Sense user, Picasso Designer might be just too much as it comes with an insane amount of options and details, but for those of us who need to customize the charts, the Picasso Designer extension is a great resource and a very interesting step forward.

Check the following video tutorial on what is and how to use Picasso Designer Extension for Qlik Sense:

Alternatively you can watch the video here: Introducing Picasso Designer for Qlik Sense - YouTube

Resources:

Picasso Designer: http://branch.qlik.com/#!/project/5b2d55a67bf18d24af3956c5
Picasso.js: https://picassojs.com/

Hope you like it,

Arturo

chrislofthouse · ‎2018-07-27

Great extension, really cool. As you alluded to, it'll be great for guided analytics but probably too much for your average user. Will it become certified ("trusted") anytime soon?

jcamps · ‎2018-07-27

Hi, this really looks great. I wonder if this could help with the following situation...

We have a mashup app that integrates standard QS charts (developed in the hub). This kind of integration has certain requirements (Angular versions...) that don't get on very well with the rest of the app (it's AngularJS and require'd versions do not like each other).

One alternative we thought of, was creating our own "objects" right within the mashup that use the lower level Qlik APIs to extract hypercubes, etc. This didn't look trivial (especially the selections & events...), but seems much easier now that we have Picasso.js.

Now, this extension seems very helpful to design this kind of objects, but could we "take the generated source code" out of the designer extension? I understand it could be used in our mashup directly...?

Thanks!

ArturoMuñoz · ‎2018-07-27

Hi Jordi, that's very interesting use case for the extension, I'm not sure about how to export the object definition generated in the UI but I can clearly see the benefits of it. I'd recommend you to ask Steven via Branch comments section.

jcamps · ‎2018-07-27

Thanks! Done

Steven_Pressland · ‎2018-07-28

Thanks Arturo for great writeup!

For information, this extension is absolutely designed for the power user and developer who need to produce a very specific chart. The power and complexity is by design because of the flexibility that Picasso.js provides.

Any feedback people have should be raised on GitHub as issues so they can be tracked and i will get notified of them. Whether it is questions, feature requests and ideas of what to change and how to make easier to use; all comments are welcome!

There are some templates now added which make it easier to get started and adapt from there.

Picasso.js is really powerful and getting more so every day, the aim of this extension is to keep pace with that power and provide an easier to use platform for those that want to use it without having to start from scratch and learn the language.

pablolabbe · ‎2018-07-29

Have to give a try !

ArturoMuñoz · ‎2018-07-30

Thank you

Anonymous · ‎2018-10-03

Hi,

I gave it a try and it looks really powerfull to create good visualizations.

One question, do you know if is there a problem to use it for commercial purposes?

Because my company is now paying for the Qlik license and this plugin is supposed to be part of the Qlik tools in the future right?

Steven_Pressland · ‎2018-10-03

I'm glad you like the extension. The extension is free to use and not part of the Qlik product. The Picasso.JS library is a building block being developed for Qlik to use for charts that ship with Qlik Sense, however its also open source and you can use it anywhere. The extension is a tool to make using that library easier to use.

The extension is released on an MIT licence, so free to use and adapt as you see fit.