Videos on stuff you can do with Excel charts.

[ChrisGreaves]

Here is a web page.
There are 12 videos loaded under the heading "Excel Spider Charts".
Please click on "Excel Spider Charts" for a text summary of what is available.

There is nothing special about spider ("radar") charts; I could have used bar charts, line charts, pie charts.
The videos show a variety of tasks implemented on mouse clicks throughout the chart.
There is nothing special about the actions I have chosen; they tend to be oriented to changing the appearance of the charts. They could as easily be "Launch a browser", "Fire off an email" or "Start a real-time analysis of 4,500 TSX companies using financial statements from Google Finance".
The number of events that can be trapped is not infinite, but it is bigger than anything any client could dream up.
We can detect a mouse click, and the 8 possible combinations of Shift/Ctrl/Alt.
We can detect a click on an object, and since we can read off the x-y coordinates of the mouse, we can calculate our position within any suitable large object.
There is nothing special about dividing the legend block (or chart area or plot area) into 2x2=4 quadrants; they could as easily be divided into 3x3, 2x3, 4x5 etc providing the areas are large enough for the user.

My biggest hurdle with the client will be getting them to dream up actions that they want to take; they will be using Excel as a presentation medium.

I am greatly indebted to This Lounge and other lounge incarnations for the VBA code I write.
If anyone is interested in running through some small tutorials, let me know and I will present them in the VBA forum.

[steveh]

Hi Chris

Thanks for taking the time to do that, I don't use charts that much but they will be a useful addition should I need to sue them more

[HansV]

should I need to sue them more

That's the right attitude! Sue the b***ards!

[steveh]

Oops

Memo to self

a. either re read posts for typos, or

b. use Word to compose and then paste (although in this case it would not have shown sue as an error (I was going to say it would not have spotted sue but that would have started a Scuttlebut type multi post here!!))

[ChrisGreaves]

... but they will be a useful addition should I need to sue them more

Disclaimer:I saw the typo but decided to let some other fool(grin!) leap in where this angel fears to threat(sic!).

The videos show an application. If you even need to intercept events in this way you'd need to write or request the code. (It's not tricky).

I wanted to show on this board the thousands of events that can be intercepted. Not that one would make 000s available, but that the user has 000s from which to choose, and can assign the most suitable, from their point of view, to the application.

In the past 24 hours, the technical side of the project has suggested we look at using the time-interval between events as an extra parameter - a delay of more than ten seconds is interpreted as "start a new series", sort of thing.
The client is asking for a means of recording each click/key event that takes place on the chart with a view to being able to re-play them at a future time, or to work through them manually. "... the keystroke selections that got me to this point. I have observed that our users click away but than can't remember how they arrived at an outcome and get very frustrated."
Looks like fun.

[ChrisGreaves]

That's the right attitude! Sue the b***ards!

"Everything you say will be taken down and used in evidence against you"