Word Cloud Object Extension

[Brian_Munz]

A new app for the US Presidential election is being released on the QlikView Demo Site shortly, and it contains an extension for a word cloud that might be useful.  It's built using this word cloud generation javascript library (built on the d3 JS library) which attempted to simulate the look and feel of Wordle:

I don't use all of the options available in this library and keep it pretty bare bones, but I imagine this extension should satisfy most use cases.

The properties are fairly straightforward:

The Words dimension is simply the list of words that will be displayed in the cloud

Measurement is an expression which controls the sizes of the words.  This could be anything you'd like to measure the words against.

Color Expression is the expression which controls the color of the words.  If you simply want one color, you could hardcode it to a hex or RGB color, or you could use an expression and mix two colors (using the ColorMix1 function from QlikView), or use the expression like a gauge and present any number of colors based on some range.

The Maximum Font Size and Minimum Font Size properties are simply the maximum and minimum sizes of the words.

SOME THINGS TO NOTE:

The cloud can be a bit unwieldly (or maybe crash) if you pass too many words into it, so I've set a maximum data set of 700 for this extension.  To change this, edit the Definition.xml file in the extension's folder and change 700 to whatever you want in this line:

<ExtensionObject Label="wordCloud" Description="wordCloud" PageHeight="700">

The only issue this might cause is if you have 1000 words in the dimension, a random selection of 700 will be passed in, in no particular order.  I've tried and tried to get the extension to sort based on the expression rather than the dimension and I think it's not possible (which may be a bug), so instead returning the top x number of words based on an expression might need to be done using set analysis, firstsortvalue, or ranking function.

I think that's it.  Let me know if you run into any problems.

EDIT

I now host this extension on GitHub. 

brianwmunz/wordCloud-QV11 · GitHub

Please download it from there form now on.  Also, feel free to update, change, improve, etc. the extension in any way you please using GitHub.

Thanks.

[#2]

Which version of IE you are using??

[Julie_Main]

Sneha,  this word cloud will not work with IE8, it needs at least IE9 to work.  There is another word cloud on here that you can use instead .. I will have a look and see if I can find it - if I can, I'll post it on the bottom of this discussion.

[mountaindude]

Didn't have the exact version number when I wrote last comment, but after checking it looks like we are running latest version of IE 9.

Pls note though that I have not tested this particular extension - but we got a lot more stable results for other extensions after moving away from IE 8.

[Julie_Main]

This word cloud should work with IE8.  You can updated the CSS files etc.. to remove the boxes around the word and change the colours.  I would like to give credit to whoever created it (it was not me), however unfortunately I cannot remember who it was!  Thanks,

Julie

[#6]

Hi Brian,

Thanks a lot for extension. It really works well. I have following concerns:

1) It takes very high turnaround time. For example, if we choose 1 region from drop-down, then it takes more time to react and to build new cloud. Even if we clear selection, it will take time to come back to original situation. In short, turnaround / response time is too high. Please suggest proper solution.

2) Is there any way to shape Cloud in round shape?

Please advise.

Thanks,

Hiren

[#7]

I m also facing same thing if i take large set of data..

[Brian_Munz]

Hi Hiren,

1) How many words are you attempting to display in the word cloud?

2) There probably is a way, but I don't know of an easy one.  I think it would be pretty difficult.

[#9]

Hi Brain,

1) There would be 500 records max.

Thanks,

Hiren

[Brian_Munz]

Would you be willing to share the app with me?  You can send it in a private message...

[#11]

Hi Borja,

I am new to Qlikview and I'd like to know how to show word cloud with colours. I want to show multiple colours in word cloud.

Thank you!