Introduction

RChart Visual Builder is a tool for creating charts to be used with RChart. The tool will allow you to interactively create the parameters required by RChart.

The benefits of using RChart Visual Builder are:

• you don't have to write much php source code in order to create charts.
• you will not make any mistakes when typing parameters, since you visualy define the chart.
• you will have an overview of the available parameters.
• you will easily and quickly test changes in you chart design.

this will result in shorter learning and development times.

Layout

RChart Visual Builder is made of 4 areas:

• The chart area (left frame): This area will display the chart you have created. You must click on the "refresh" button each time you want to rebuild the chart.
• The main menu: This area lists the operations you can perform, together with some sample charts you can use as starting point.
• The components tree (right-top corner): this area displays the components of the chart. Click on one of the components to load the configuration in the data area.
• The data area (right-bottom corner): this area displays the parameters (configuration) available for the selected component.

Main menu

The main menu allows you to perform the following operations:

• New chart: create a new empty chart. We actually recommend you to use one of our examples as a starting point for your charts.
• Show parameters: show the parameters required to build the current chart. You can copy and paste these parameters on an external file to be used by RChart.
• Help: displays this help file.
• About: displays version information.
• Load examples: loads several examples, use the "refresh" button to update the chart after you load an example.

Components

The parameters that made up the chart have been classified into the following categories:

• Chart: chart's configuration parameters like legend, title and layout
• X Axis, Y Axis and Y2 Axis: configuration of the axis and scales.
• LineChart, BarChart, PieChart , RadarChart, GaugeChart: parameters which depends on the type of chart.
• Subgauge1 and Subgauge2: configuration of the subgauges in the Gaugechart.
• Series: Configuration of the series to be plotted. The series contain the values to be plotted. The series will be active only if your enter a value in the "name" field.

Data Area

The Data area displays the configuration of the chart component you have selected. Parameters which are empty or contain the default value are displayed as gray labels. Parameters which contain a value different form the default one are displayed using a black label.

The Data area contains 2 buttons:

• save: You must click on the Save button if you want the parameters to be saved before you select another component of the chart.
• refresh: You must press this button in order to update the chart on the left frame.