Richard Willis

I’ve just been using the Google Chart API to create charts in some web parts. If you haven’t come across it before it’s a fantastic free tool for charting. For example the 2 images which follow come straight from Google using data embedded in the url.

All you need to do to include a chart is include an image element in your html pointing to the Google chart servers with the appropriate parameters. You do of course need an internet connection for this to work as the images are retrieved directly from Google.

You can control everything about how the chart is built and displayed and 9 different types of charts available. I think that this is a valuable addition to your toolset. To see more details go to the Developers Guide.

As an example I’ll work through an example with some of the data I was using, lesson attendance data.

This is generated with the following image element.

<img src=”http://chart.apis.google.com/chartcht=bvs&chs=400×125 &chco=008000,FFFF00,FF9900,FF0000,0000FF&chdl=Present|Late|Authorised%20Absence|Unauthorised20Absence&chba=a&chxt=x,y&chxl=0:|Psy|Bus|Inf|Phy||1:|0|25|50 &chds=0,50 &chd=t:4,21,22,0|0,0,0,0|0,0,0,0|1,16,7,0” />

It looks complex, and until you get the hang of the parameters it can be, but going through each parameter in turn it turns out to be remarkably easy to use.

cht=bvs

This is the type of chart, in this case a vertical bar type.

chs=400×125

The size of chart in pixels

chco=008000,FFFF00,FF9900,FF0000,0000FF

The chart colours in hex format. Only hex format is supported.

chdl=Present|Late|Authorised%20Absence|Unauthorised20Absence

The chart labels

chba=a

Auto-size the chart columns if they don’t fit, By default each column is 25 pixels wide.

chxt=x,y

Defines the axes for the rest of the axis labelling.

chxl=0:|Psy|Bus|Inf|Phy||1:|0|25|50

Any axes labels. The digit followed by a : indicates it’s for that positioned axes in chxt. So this futher splits down into

0:|Psy|Bus|Inf|Phy meaning for axis x use the values Psy, Bus, Inf & Phy

1:|0|25|50 meaning for axis y use the values 0, 25 and 50

chds=0,50

This defines the scaling of the graph. Be default the scale is 0 to 100 so for this data where the maximum is 37, it would all be squashed in the bottom half of the image. Another thing to bear in mind is that values smaller than the ranges will not appear and values greater than the maximum will be truncated to the maximum.

chd=t:4,21,22,0|0,0,0,0|0,0,0,0|1,16,7,0

This is the actual data. The t indicates the type of data, in this case text with data scaling as we’ve included the chds parameter. The possibilities are

• Text: Float number 0 – 100
• Test with data scaling: Any positive or negative number
• Simple encoding: Integers 0 – 61. Each value represented by a single alphanumeric character. This is the shortest data string, but is very limited.
• Extended encoding: Integers 0 – 4095. Each value represented by two alphanumeric characters.

I’ve been creating some site definitions for a customer recently and hit a snag on a page with the My Planner web part was displaying strangely.

If you look closely you can see that with the custom styles we are using, the drop down arrow to the right of Sharepoint Calendars has overlapped the text.

It’s obviously a style problem and has an easy fix. You just need to open up C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\LAYOUTS\1033\LGUtilities\styles\dropdown.css and modify a couple of widths. It’s just a case of trial and error to get what works with your styles, but it’s .MainNavigation ul and .MainNavigation ul li which need changing.

And the finished item looks like.

If you can’t make the official SharePint on Wednesday, then we’re having an unofficial one on Tuesday. Same time, 7 pm ish, same place The Old Star (66, Broadway, Westminster, London, SW1H 0DB). I’ll be there and so should the guys from Twynham school.

Feel free to come along even if you’re not at the conference.

Just turn up or you can get me on twitter (RPWillis).

Also posted on Edugeek and CodePlex.

I’ll be going to the one on Wednesday as well.

Finally signed up to Twitter to see what it’s all about. User name is RPWillis.

I’ve finally got around to completing my Linked In profile apart from finding a decent photo to add. In anyone is interested you can view it at http://www.linkedin.com/in/salamandersoft.

I’m not sure how much use Linked In is, but it seems to be a useful networking tool.

Last Friday I went to a SharePoint user group hosted by Microsoft in Reading. While there Microsoft highlighted some of the announcements which were made at the PDC conference in October.

One of the highlights was that in Office 14, the next version of Microsoft Office, Microsoft will deliver “Office Web Applications” which are lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote which run in browsers. This won’t just be IE either, they will be cross-browser compatible and run on different devices as well, such as your phone.

Microsoft’s aim with the online verion is to make them ‘high-fidelity’, i.e. they will look exactly the same in the browser based version as the rich-client version. They will also support multiple people editing a single document at a time, just like currently in OneNote. The online versions won’t have all the features of the rich-client version, but I imagine that most of what we use them for will be supported, with only the more esoteric functions missing.

Licensing and costs have not been announced yet, but Microsoft will deliver Office Web Applications to consumers through Office Live and to businesses as a hosted subsription service and through existing volume licensing agreements.

It will be interesting to see how peoples view of Office changes with the move towards person licensing rather than device licensing. I can see a large take-up amongst students where they can use the free ad-funded license. However, I imagine businesses are going to be more cautious and roll-out the rich-client when they upgrade rather then just rely on the web based offering as it will be quite a mind-set change.

There’s some more information on the Microsoft PressPass site.

As it’s my first post, I guess that I ought to give a bit of information about myself.

As you can tell from the header my name is Richard Willis and I work for SalamanderSoft. SalamanderSoft is a small software house which specializes in integration products in the education sector and also writes SharePoint web parts. SalamanderSoft consists of myself as managing director, programmer, support team, marketing team and general dogsbody, and my wife, Helen, who deals with the important stuff like money.

In this blog I’m aiming to cover what I’m doing with our products, some technical stuff about SharePoint and useful news about the education sector.