amCharts & amMap blog

Since v 1.3.2 Line & area, Column & Bar and Scatter & Bubble can have logarithmic scale axis instead of standard linear. In logarithmic axis equal distance along it represents an equal percentage change. It is very useful if you want to present large scale data on the same chart.

To make your axis logarithmic, all you need to do is to add:

<logarithmic>true</logarithmic>

in your axis settings.

Line & area chart can have logarithmic y left and right axis, column & bar chart - value axis, scatter and bubble chart - both x and y axis.

More info about logarithmic scale:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_scale

After the release of ammap 2.0 some users have decided to share their maps with all of you. So I launched "free maps" page where these contributed maps will appear. You can find the New Zealand map on this page now, but soon I will add several more. I invite you to join this initiative!

I also added a tutorial about creating custom maps.

Today I released v 1.3.1 of all charts. The main new feature is that now you can print charts with JavaScript. Check js_example.html to see how it works.

There are two functions for printing:

flashMovie.print();

and

flashMovie.printAsBitmap();

In most cases the first one, print() function will produce a better result. However if you have rotated by 90 degrees labels, transparent objects or background images, it might be better to use the second function.

I am proud to tell you that Telligent Reporting Server is using amCharts. Telligent is a world famous developer of Community Server and other products.

Reporting server demo

Let me know about how you use amCharts. E-mail me: marcelionis@gmail.com or post your message to the forums.

Today version 1.3.0 of all charts was released. Here is a list of new features:

All charts:

1. More possibilities to control "export as image" feature: change position, background color and alpha, text color, target
2. export.php and export.aspx.cs files where improved (opens "save as" window)
3. More possibilities to control error messages: change colors, position, disable error messages

Line, Column and Bubble charts:

1. a possibility to have reversed axis values
2. value indicator plug-in
3. if there are non-integer axis values, zeroes are added to those values which has less numbers after comma (this gives x axis values a better look and readability)
4. strict min & max added for column and bubble chart
5. a possibility to exclude certain graph  from the legend
6. two more build-in bullets: round_outlined and square_outlined

Pie chart:

1. values can be displayed in the legend

All charts are backward compatible, however if you’d like to use new features, you should update some of your settings. Pie chart is not compatible with versions less then 1.1

A more detailed description of new features is coming

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Since v 2.1.0 you can pass data and settings directly from HTML file. Open ammap.html file in the main folder of downloaded package and view the source of it. You will notice several commented lines there.

This line is can be used for passing data directly to HTML:

so.addVariable(”map_data”, escape(’<map ……>……</map>’));

instead of <map ……>……</map> you have to place xml formatted map data in one line.

The same is with settings:

so.addVariable(”map_settings”, escape(’<settings>….</settings>’);

There is one more variable - “additional_map_settings“. You can use it for appending some map settings. This is useful, if you have several maps with similar settings, and you have one file for all of them, but let’s say you want to make some small differences. You can use this variable for that:

so.addVariable(”additional_map_settings”, escape(’<settings>…</settings>’);

In v 2.1.0 you can also have multiple settings files. To use several settings files, separate them with commas:

so.addVariable(”settings_file”, escape(”ammap/ammap_settings.xml,ammap/ammap_settings2.xml”));

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In a new version of line chart (1.2.13) you can display values near your points. The settings are the same as column chart’s:

<graph id="0">
  ……
<data_labels>{value}</data_labels>
<data_labels_text_size>10</data_labels_text_size>
<data_labels_text_color>#CC0000</data_labels_text_color>
<data_labels_position>above</data_labels_position>

You can format any data label, do not forget <![CDATA[]]> if you use HTML tags.

You can display data label above or below your points.

To avoid overlapping, data labels, the same as bullets, are hided if you have more series then specified in:

<hide_bullets_count>10</hide_bullets_count>

This would mean that if you have 20 series data labels will not be visible. And if you select (zoom) range with 10 or less series, the labels will be displayed.

Here is an example. Try to select short period (<10 series) and you will see data labels near "anomaly" graph.

If you want to display only some of data labels, you can use description for it. Set description for your value (you can do it only if you are using XML data file):

<value xid="10" description="50">50</value>

And then set that you want to have description in your data labels:

<data_labels>{description}</data_labels>

Update:

you can set individual data label position in data xml file:

<value xid="1" label_position="below">44</value>

Best Regards,

Antanas
Download amLine

Since v 2.0.13 you can set selected areas color:

for all areas in settings file:

<area>
   …
   <color_selected>#0000CC</color_selected>

for one area in data file:

<area color_selected=”#00CC00″ …..>

I noticed that in some situations you might want to disable rollover the area effect, balloon and click when you select this area. For example, you click on some country, map is zoomed to it, and then you show some inside movie clips. In this case it would be better if only those movie clips would be clickable, and the area would not. Now you can easily do this by setting:

<area>
   …
   <disable_when_clicked>true</disable_when_clicked>

This can be done since 2.0.13

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Matt Aimonetti wrote nice article about using amcharts with Ruby on rails. Thanks a lot, Matt!