As commercial web sites, corporate intranets and client applications become more
and more sophisticated, users require and demand information on an individual
basis. This is one of the reasons
why web sites and client applications are beginning to support
customized content with individual topics of interest and other personal
information.
When it comes to Chart FX, there are many attributes the user may
customize for each chart. Picture this,
a particular user likes the graphical capabilities of Chart FX in your
application; there is, however, one minor issue that annoys him, which is the
color scheme you have chosen for your charts. There is another user asking you to change your default bar chart for a
line chart. You instruct them to use the
Chart FX user interface to change the visual attributes of the chart
every time they log on to your site.
But, wouldn't it be nice if your application could provide charts with visual
attributes they like but with new data for subsequent visits?
Chart FX can deliver personalized charts to your users. here are two ways to provide personalized
charts: using the Chart FX User Interface (UI) with a few clicks by the
end-user, or totally automatic through the API.
Important Note: Personalize features are available only for active charts (.NET or ActiveX).
Personalizing a Chart using the User Interface
One of the options of the Chart FX toolbar is the PersonalizedCharts icon. It provides the user 3
options:

Load My Chart: when the user clicks on this option, any
previously saved transformations will be applied to the new data. These
transformations have been saved through either UI or API. If there are no
transformations saved, no changes will be applied to the chart.
Save My Chart: when it's clicked, all the
transformations made by the end-user to the original chart will be saved in a
small file (approx. 1K) in the user's personal Isolated Storage. Isolated
Storage is a concept introduced by .NET, and is located under the user's
personal section of the local drive (Documents and Settings\...). For further
details on how Isolated Storage works please refer to the .NET documentation.
Reset Defaults: this option clears
all the transformations made by the end-user and resets the chart to the
original look established in the application. By default this option is disabled
but it will be enabled as soon as the end-user modifies any attribute of the
chart or a saved chart is loaded.
Personalizing a Chart using the API
When chart personalization is applied through the UI, user intervention is
required to save and apply the transformations. In many cases the developer
wants to provide an automatic mechanism to save and apply those changes. Chart
FX provides this through the PersonalizedFlags property. With this property, the developer has the
ability to decide whether the changes will be saved and/or loaded
automatically. The supported flags are:
PersonalizedFlags.AutoLoad: before
the chart is rendered, Chart FX will look for a saved transformation
file in the user's Isolated Storage, and will apply it to the new data if found.
This functions as if the user selected the "Load My Chart" option. By default
this option is disabled.
PersonalizedFlags.AutoSave: any
transformations made to the chart will be automatically saved to the Isolated
Storage when the chart is destroyed (the browser is refreshed or closed, or
another page is invoked). By default this option is disabled.
PersonalizedFlags.EnableRestore: as
soon as the user makes the first change to the chart through the UI, the
original chart is saved in memory to allow the Reset Defaults option. If you
don't want to provide such option to the end-user, you may avoid the process of
saving the chart in memory. This can be accomplished by turning off the
EnableRestore flag (enabled by default). You must use the bitwise combination of
the flags and property, as follows:
chart1.setPersonalizedFlags(ENABLE_RESTORE);
|
In order to prevent other interference among Personalized Chart settings
saved from different applications or web sites, all changes made by the user
will be saved in the directory pointed by the Isolated Storage assigned by .NET
to the application. .NET automatically
assigns a unique name to every application that uses Isolated Storage. This way, your charts will not interfere with
other applications or web sites that also use Chart FX for .NET as their
preferred charting engine. And getting
back to the original state of your applications or web site translates into
removing some files from the Isolated Storage directory.
For more information regarding the PersonalizedFlags enumeration refer to the Chart FX for Java API Reference.
|