You can now save plots. They have an edit/preview/save cycle like everything else.

Posted: 2011/04/24 | Author: | Filed under: FormLis, Updates | Tags: , , | Leave a comment »
I've integrated plots into the system now.   They are saved to the backend database, show up with their parent views in the view list, and have a save/edit/preview user interface cycle. So they're coming along pretty nicely. 

This chart is part of a diet tracker.   This chart is showing how much of each food group each person has eaten today.   I don't render a legend yet… it's coming.

Eaten

Actual FormLis Powered Plots

Posted: 2011/04/14 | Author: | Filed under: FormLis, Forth, Programming, Updates | Tags: , , | Leave a comment »

I’ve been busy integrating charts into FormLis. Heres how they look together. Isn’t that lovely?

Chart
You generate charts from view data. In this case I used a food intake tracker that is helping people make sure they’re getting their recommended daily amounts. Here is the
relevant data — I’ve added the highlighting, column numbers and outlines — this is what the chart is seeing.
Dataset
And here is the magic tying them together:
PLOT bar chart ;
ON “/*/” leaf-totals ;
LIMIT 1 ;
POINTS-PER-ROW 6 ;
X p# 0 case “Protein” ; then
     1 case “Grains” ; then
     2 case “Vegetables” ; then
     3 case “Fruits” ; then
     4 case “Milk” ; then
     5 case “Fats” ; then ;
Y 5 p# + column ;

Plots describe how views are transformed into (X & Y) pairs. ON “/*/” leaf-totals ;  slices the data up into multiple plots. In this case 1 plot per  top level group (e.g. Tom, Peggy, etc). Its the pink boxes in the view above.  I’m using the leaf-totals as data because they contain my daily sum (I’ve highlighted them in white). Leaf-totals means the same as the sub-sub-sub-sub-totals. I could have chosen to use the rows or the overall totals.

I want to restrict the plot to just todays data, which is the first row in each group, so I say LIMIT 1 ;.

Each of these rows will produce several (X &Y) pairs. For example Tom’s row will produce (“Protein” & 12), (“Grains” & 6), (“Vegatables” & 2.5) etc. So I say POINTS-PER-ROW 6 ;

Lastly, I have to tell FormLis how to compute the X & Y values. That’s what the X and Y functions above do. X says “take the point number (p#), if its zero -> Protein, if its 1 -> Grains, etc”. Y says take the point number, add 5, and use that column’s data.

Scatter Plots

Posted: 2011/04/06 | Author: | Filed under: FormLis, Marketing, Updates | Tags: , | Leave a comment »

I've added scatter plots. These charts are powered by code that does both the placing the (variably sized) dots on the scatter plot, and placing the line markers dots on the plot lines.

Scatterchart

Nearly done.  I still have to make cumulative bar charts, and enable dot-markers on the cumulative line chart from the previous post. I'll probably add some white-space between the y-title and the y-numbers.  

Chart rendering is now (pretty much) in the bag.

Posted: 2011/04/05 | Author: | Filed under: FormLis, Marketing, Programming, Updates | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment »
I've got charts pretty much licked. The following image shows line charts, a bar chart, and a cumulative line chart.  I've still got to make scatter plot charts and cumulative bar charts.  Then I need to pick some better default colors — I dropped the sophisticated color AI I mentioned earlier because it had a tendency to pick a lovely shade of puke green and some complementary colors.    Now I just use preset colors that can be overridden.

The colors I'm using (blue, red, green) are okay, but I'll try to create a default set that is both lovely, sufficiently contrasted, and as usable by the visual impaired as can be without giving up too much prettyness. 
Charts

Also I dropped the object orientation.  As my design took shape I found the OO approach wasn't pulling its weight and was making me design an API that was good for subclasses rather than an API that was good for making charts.

Progress on bar, line and scatter plots.

Posted: 2011/04/02 | Author: | Filed under: FormLis, Programming, Updates | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments »

With pie charts well in hand, I still have to do bar, line and scatter plots.  All three need a grid to draw over, so that’s what I’ve been working on.   The system is able to determine a nice range for the data, then appropriately size the labels.

Ex10

 

Surprisingly, these charts are the object oriented; the only thing in my entire system that is.  Without getting controversial, I find objects usually makes problems more complicated and they make code more difficult to change.   In this case, my objects describe the plots and have routines to draw portions of it (i.e. draw titles, draw axis, draw data).  At a high level the plots are more same then different,  so it works out pretty well.

Charts still coming (here is a sample). Labels print horizontally, text-scale is determined automatically.

Posted: 2011/03/27 | Author: | Filed under: FormLis, Marketing, Updates | Tags: , , | Leave a comment »
This is how the pie chart looks now.  It was difficult to write functions to add text to the charts. I've decided to use arial, so my font size calculations are based on that.  More importantly, I've now got the general flow figured out. Meaning that I've explored this problem enough that I have a handle on what parts can be reused when I make bar and line charts, which are still coming.

Ex9

More pie charts

Posted: 2011/03/18 | Author: | Filed under: FormLis, Marketing | Tags: , , | Leave a comment »

I’m still playing with charts.  Its a matter of finding the simplist path from a collection of data to a nice picture.  Along the way, I need to figure out the scale, place rotate and resize the labels, draw axis, and pick colors, all while drawing from bottom to top.

This image shows the work in progress.  The colored rectangles outside the circle will hold labels. The white rectangles inside the circle will show percentage of total (or dollar amount, or # of units).

Pie Chart

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