NetCharts® Applets v5.0 Release Notes and New Features

NetCharts Applets 5.0 introduces three new chart types to give you even more charting choices. A number of new chart component controls and a variety of chart-specific enhancements, such as 3-D dial borders and rotated, angled axis text enhance your charts with additional professional touches.

See the appropriate API documentation for each enhancement.

Platform Enhancements

JRE 1.3.1 or greater required, JRE 1.5.0 recommended

NetCharts Applets 5.0 requires a Java runtime environment version 1.3.1 or greater - JRE version 1.5.0 and greater produced the best performance and graphics quality. Internet Explorer's default JRE 1.1.7 does not meet the minimumum requirement. Internet Explorer must use a Java plug-in to render applets built with NetCharts Applets 5.0.

Chart Type Enhancements

Heat Map Charts - New Chart Type!

A Heat Map chart has been added to NetCharts Applets in version 5.0. Heat Map charts display a rectangular grid of cells which can be colored and labeled based on data. A typical use is to show the percent change in stock prices, as in the middle chart of the top row, where red is negative and green is positive change, and darker colors show the degree or intensity of the change.

Basic Heat Map Chart	Stocks Heat Map Chart	Spectrum Heat Map Chart
Expression Heat Map Chart

Multipie Charts - New Chart Type!

A Multipie chart has been added to NetCharts Applets in version 5.0. Multipie charts display two dimensional data sets as a series of pies with a common legend and common titles.

Horizontal Multipie Chart

Vertical Multipie Chart

Grid Multipie Chart

Pareto Charts - New Chart Type!

A Pareto chart has been added to NetCharts Applets in version 5.0. Pareto charts consist of one or more bar sets and a single line. The bar sets are automatically sorted in descending order. The line is calculated based on the bar data and represents a cumulative total value of the bars. A Pareto chart is a specialized version of a histogram that ranks the categories in the chart from most frequent to least frequent. A Pareto Chart is useful for non-numeric data, such as "cause", "type", or "classification." This tool helps to prioritize where action and process changes should be focused. If one is trying to take action based upon causes of accidents or events, it is generally most helpful to focus efforts on the most frequent causes.

Basic Pareto Chart	80-20 Pareto Chart	Basic Stacked Pareto Chart
Stacked 80-20 Pareto Chart	Dual Y-Axis Pareto Chart	80-20 Pareto Chart w/ Dual Y-Axis
Stacked 80-20 Pareto Chart w/ Dual Y-Axis

Dial Chart Enhancements

Two new CDL parameters allow the addition of three-dimensional borders and gradient backgrounds on dial charts. See the online CDL reference manual for details on DialOuterBorder and DialOuterFillPattern parameters. See also the API documentation for netcharts.pro.charts.dial.NFDialOuterBorder and netcharts.pro.charts.dial.NFDialchart.setDialOuterFillPattern().

Dial Chart
w/ 3-D border

Dial Chart w/ gradient background

Axis Label Text Rotation Enhancements

The text rotation algorithm has been improved. Text can be rotated from left or right endpoints. Rotated text can be more tightly grouped. This improves for example, the display of 60 degree rotated bottom axis labels. See the new CDL attributes for the AxisTics parameters and the API documentation for netcharts.pro.common.rectangular.NFAxis.setTicLabelRotationPoint().

X-Y Chart showing enhanced axis label text rotation

New Gradient Types enhancements

NetCharts Applets 5.0 supports three gradient types. See the CDL documentation on fill patterns containing GRADIENTRADIAL, GRADIENTCENTERHORIZONTAL, and GRADIENTCENTERVERTICAL and the API documentation for netcharts.pro.common.NFFillPattern.

Legend Drawing Enhancements
Several new parameters provide increased control over chart legends. LegendItemBorderallows explicit specification or the borders around legend symbols. LegendSymbolPostion controls the location of a legend items symbol relative to its text. ItemOrder is a new attribute of the LegendLayout parameter. It controls the order in which legend items are displayed. For details see the CDL reference manual and the API documentation for netcharts.pro.common.NFLegend.getSymbolPosition() and netcharts.pro.common.NFLegend.setItemOrder().

Logarithmic Axis Autoscaling

NetCharts Applets 5.0 supports autoscaled logarithmic axes.

Automatic Text Wrapping

NetCharts Applets 5.0 supports auto-wrapping of text. See the CDL documentation for a new font attribute called maxLineAdvance and the API documentation for netcharts.pro.common.NFTextStyle.

Anti-Aliased Text and Graphics

By default, Netcharts Applets 5.0 draws using anti-aliasing. This can be overridden with the AntiAlias CDL parameter.

Additional Feature Enhancements

API Changes

The Java API to NetCharts Applets 5.0 is not completely backward compatible with previous versions of NetCharts Applets. Starting with NetCharts Applets 5.0 ActiveLabel objects now contain java.awt.Shape objects as opposed to java.awt.Polygon objects. The areaPoly field of type java.awt.Polygon has been replaced with a field called area of type java.awt.Shape. All ActiveLabel methods that manipulated areaPoly as a java.awt.Polygon have been replaced with methods that manipulate area as a java.awt.Shape. See the API documentation for NFActiveLabel for complete details.

Reserved Words
- FILE
- NDS
- SERVER
- STYLE
- CDXVARIABLE