Charts and the Chart View
A Chartsmith Document can contain any number of charts, which may be
viewed in the main scroll view (the Chart View) of the Chart Window. The chart
shown in the Chart Window of any document is the currently selected chart. A
chart can be considered a canvas onto which a background, a grid, all chart
series, all titles, all annotations and a legend are drawn. The primary
component of a chart is its collection of chart series.
You can create a new chart by choosing a submenu item of the Chart -> Add
Chart menu item. Choosing one of these menu items inserts a new chart of that
type after the currently selected chart in the active document. All new charts
contain one series of the selected chart type. In Preferences you can associate
a template with each chart type, and that template will be applied to all new
charts of that type. Use this feature to format all new charts based on the
contents of a specified template.
Use the Chart submenu to add or delete charts, save charts as image files, size
the chart to fit the Chart Window, or Normalize the chart. You can also create
a chart based on a template, save a chart as a template, or apply a template to
an existing chart.
Chart components
A chart consists of the background, titles, legend, grid, series, and
annotations. Chartsmith provides you with the flexibility to control and change
many attributes of these components.
Background
This is the backdrop for your chart; it always draws behind all other objects in
the chart. The background for a chart can be a solid color, a gradient from one
color to another, or can have no fill at all. You may also add an image to the
backgound, which draws on top of the color or gradient.
Title and Subtitle
Every chart has a Title and Subtitle by default. Titles are an integral part of
a chart, and cannot be cut, copied, or deleted (although their textual contents
may be). If you wish to remove the titles from a chart, you may hide them using
the title switches on the Data View Window. Graphically, titles behave exactly
like text annotations.
Legend
Every chart has a legend by default.
Legends are also an integral part of a chart, and cannot be cut, copied or
deleted. If you wish to remove the legend from a chart, you may hide it using
the Legend switch on the Data View Window.
Grid
Every chart has a grid by default, with
the exception of pie charts, which require no grid. Grids are an integral part
of a chart and cannot be cut, copied or deleted. If you wish to remove the grid
from a chart, you may hide it using the Grid switch on the Data View Window.
Grids consist of a set of axes, axis labels, grid lines, tick marks, and tick
labels.
Series
Every chart has at least one series with
at least one data element. You may add as many series and data elements to a
chart as you wish. A series is the graphical representation of a column of data
found in the Data View Window. Series types include Bar, Line, Hi-Lo,
Hi-Lo-Open-Close, Error Bar, Area, Pie, XY, Scatter and Bubble.
Annotations
Any chart may be enhanced by adding
annotations. Annotations provided by Chartsmith are Text, Line, Box/Image,
Circle and Balloon.
Selecting chart components
In order to inspect any component of a chart, that component must first be
selected. Select a component by clicking on it with the mouse. A selected
object will be highlighted with dark-gray selection knobs. These selection
knobs are also used to resize the object. Some objects display light-gray
selection knobs, indicating that the knob cannot be used to resize the object.
To select multiple objects, shift-click on all objects that you want to select.
Alternatively, you can drag-select the objects by clicking on the background of
the chart and dragging over the desired objects, as shown in the diagram below.
Shift-clicking objects in a multiple selection deselects them.
Drawing Order
The components of a chart each have a relative position, front to back. When
chart components overlap, you may wish to change their relative positions by using
the Format->Bring_To_Front and Format->Send_To_Back menu items. These
actions can also be applied to multiple selections in a chart.
The drawing order of chart series is handled differently than other chart
components. Any series that are displayed on a Grid are tied to the Grid in the
drawing order hierarchy. This means that a Grid can never draw in front of any
series, and objects cannot be inserted between a series and its grid. Also, the
drawing order of chart series are determined by the order of the series columns
in the Data View. The series that corresponds to the leftmost series column is
drawn first, and the series that corresponds to the rightmost series column is
drawn last. This drawing order can be altered by control-dragging the series columns
from their column headers. See the Data View help file for more information.