Line Chart Shapes

[Jennell_Yorkman]

Enhancements have been made to the line chart plugin feature that allows point and lines to be added to the line chart. These enhancements include features such as labels for points and lines, placement options for labels, and point symbol, size and color styling options. In the chart below, there is a line chart showing the daily page views for a site over time. Notice the point annotations for the highest and lowest daily page views days.

Let’s look at how these were created and the new features that are now available. Points and lines can be added to a line chart from the properties panel under Add-ons > Shapes.

The shape options that can be added are point and line. To add a point for the highest daily page views, a dimension value needs to be entered. It can be hard-coded, or it can be an expression. In this example, I used an expression to show the highest day in the current year. Measure input is set to measure index and the index is set to 0 to use the first measure in the line chart. Shown below are the styling options now available to use. Star was the symbol selected from the list of 7 options (circle, cross, diamond, saltire, square, star and triangle). The point color and outline are a color that stands out in the chart.

The same procedure was followed to add the symbol for the lowest daily page views. The expression was modified as well as the symbol and symbol color. The Colored background was checked to give a dark background to the label to make it easier to read.

Notice how these annotations highlight aspects about the line chart that may be significant or that the developer wants to point out. Let’s add a line to this chart to see what it looks like. To add a line to this chart that connects these points, a new line shape needs to be added with the value or expression for the line endpoints. Like the points, the line can be colored, and the line thickness, type and curve can also be styled.

These shapes do not replace the reference lines or dimension reference lines that can be added to a line chart. They can still be added to a line chart. The shapes feature should be used to add context to a line chart to enable better understanding. Check out Qlik Help to learn more.

Thanks,

Jennell