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How to Create a Shortcut Visualization

Shortcut visualizations, or configured visualizations, are base visualizations where the data dependent properties have been configured.

Overview

This topic describes how to create a shortcut visualization for Spotfire. It contains implementation details on how to turn a bar chart into a histogram.

Background Information

• Creating a Visualization
  A visualization is a visual displaying data in Spotfire. A custom visualization defines a unique visualization, implementing model, view, and possibly using additional components.

Prerequisites

• Spotfire SDK\Examples\Extensions\SpotfireDeveloper.CustomVisualsExample
  The project contains the code of several visualizations. One is the SpotfireDeveloper.ConfiguredBarChart shortcut visualization.

Turning a bar chart into a histogram

Open the SpotfireDeveloper.CustomVisualsExample.csproj SDK project in Visual Studio®.

ConfiguredBarChartFactory.cs

The purpose of the ConfiguredBarChart shortcut visualization in the SDK is to configure a bar bar chart to behave as a histogram. Still, a new visual must be registered in an add-in to make the shortcut visualization available in Spotfire:

public sealed class CustomVisualsAddIn : AddIn
{
    // Registers the custom visuals in the add-in.
    protected override void RegisterVisuals(AddIn.VisualRegistrar registrar)
    {
        base.RegisterVisuals(registrar);
        registrar.Register(new ConfiguredBarChartFactory());
    }
}

CustomVisualsIdentifiers.cs

The CustomVisualsIdentifiers contains type identifiers for the custom visuals. Add a type identifier for the configured bar chart:

public sealed class CustomVisualsIdentifiers : CustomTypeIdentifiers
{
    // Type identifier for the configured Bar Chart.
    public static readonly CustomTypeIdentifier ConfiguredBarChart =
        CreateTypeIdentifier(
            "SpotfireDeveloper.ConfiguredBarChart",
            Properties.Resources.ConfiguredBarChartDisplayName,
            Properties.Resources.ConfiguredBarChartDescription);
}

ConfiguredBarChartFactory.cs

A shortcut visualization inherits from the ConfiguredVisualFactory base class passing the visualization type as parameter. A number of parameters must be specified in a call to the base class: The visualization that the configured visualization is based on, the visual category, associated GUI icon, and associated licenses. The icon is a bitmap used to identify the configured bar chart in the Spotfire application menus. Include it in the .NET environment resources.

internal sealed class ConfiguredBarChartFactory : ConfiguredVisualFactory<BarChart>
{
    internal ConfiguredBarChartFactory()
        : base(
             VisualTypeIdentifiers.BarChart,                 // Type identifier for base visualization
             CustomVisualsIdentifiers.ConfiguredBarChart,    // New Type identifier
             VisualCategory.Visualization,                   // Visual category
             Properties.Resources.ConfiguredBarChartImage,   // Icon
             null)                                           // License
    {
        // Empty
    }
}

To configure data dependent properties, override the AutoConfigureCore method. First Data.Autoconfigure is used for the default data setup. Then the individual settings are configured to make the bar chart behave like a histogram:

protected override void AutoConfigureCore(BarChart visual)
{
  base.AutoConfigureCore(visual);

  // Set default data table, filterings and marking
  visual.Data.AutoConfigure();
  visual.BarWidth = 100;
  visual.YAxis.Expression = "Count()";
  visual.ShowShadowBars = true;
  if (visual.Data.DataTableReference != null)
  {
     foreach (DataColumn column in visual.Data.DataTableReference.Columns)
     {
        // Find a numeric column
        if (column.Properties.DataType.IsNumeric)
        {
           visual.XAxis.Expression = "BinByEvenIntervals(" + column.NameEscapedForExpression + ", 20)";
           break;
        }
     }
   }
}