Enhancements in VARCHART XGantt Build No. 4.200.0.153

 

• “Watermarks” can now be produced in charts in the form of annotations to date line grids. For this, seven new properties have been implemented to the VcDateLineGrid object: AdjustToReferenceDate, AnnotationAtBottom, AnnotationAtCenter, Annotation-AtTop, FormatName, HorAlignment and TurningAnnotationEnabled.
  
  

Above: The group names "Incidents" and "CLN" were used as watermarks to make lines recognisable even when remote from the table.

• The size of the sensitive areas at the start and the end of a layer was enlarged to facilitate interaction with the layer.
   
• A marked node can now be moved horizontally and its duration can be modified by arrow keys. For this, two different VcGantt properties have been implemented: ArrowKeymode and ArrowKeyStepSizeMultiplier.
   
• To provide runtime access to the info window which pops up when a node is created or modified interactively, a new object has been implemented: VcGantt.VcInfo­Window.
   
• To set a reference date and the date formats to the information window, six properties were implemented to the VcInfoWindow object: OutputFormatForCenterDate, Output-FormatForDuration, OutputFormatForEndDate, OutputFormatForStartDate, UseReferenceDate and Visible.
   
• A method and two events were implemented to he VcGantt object to enhance layer annotations: the method ConvertDistance and the events VcObjectDrawing and VcObjectDrawn.
   
• The Print Preview received a new combo box where a zoom factor can be selected for the single-pages view mode.
   
• The total height of layers (and ultimately the total height of chart) can be controlled. For this, the new method SubRowMargins was implemented to the VcGantt object.

 

Enhancements in VARCHART XGantt Build No. 4.200.0.102
 

• The layer width can now be queried by the new property CalculateCurrentWidth implemented to the object VcLayer.
   
• Line Colors of the border line of a layer can now be mapped by the new layer properties Line-ColorDataFieldIndex and LineColorMapName.
  
  

Above: Mapped layer lines may be a visual reference to the group that they belong to.

• The automated update of optimized groups layout after interactions can be switched off and then can then be set manually by the new properties GroupOptimizationOnInteractionsEnabled and ReOptimizeNodes. This is useful if you wish to offer a manual control to the user on the position of a node inserted by interaction. When the automated optimization is switched on, a node may visually "disappear" from the place chosen by the user and move to its optimized position as soon as the user releases the phantom, leaving the impression that the user might not have created a node at all.
   
• Date line grids have been considerably enhanced and can now have annotations. A number of new grid line properties have been implemented: The new grid line property AdjustTo-ReferenceDate lets you set the beginning of the grid to a time other than 0:00 h. The new properties AnnotationAtBottom, AnnotationAtCenter and AnnotationAtTop let you position the annotations correspondingly. The property HorAlignment allows to horizontally align the annotations and the property TurningAnnotationEnabled allows to turn an annotation upside down. Beside, you can set a line format to a date line grid by the property FormatName. A new object LineFormat has been implemented to the Gantt object, along with the objects LineFormatCollection and LineFormatDataField.
     
• The new LineFormatCollection properties and methods are similar to other format collection functions, such as the property Count; also the methods Add, AddBySpecification, Copy, Remove, FirstFormat, NextFormat, FormatByIndex and FormatByName have been implemented in analogy to functions of other collections.
   
• The same is valid for the line format functions. The properties are FormatField, FormatFieldCount, Name and Specification, the methods are CopyFormatField and RemoveFormatField.
   
• Also, line format field properties have been implemented in analogy to format field properties already known of other objects: Alignment, BackgroundColor, BackgroundColorDataFieldIndex, BackgroundColorMapName, ConstantText, DateOutputFormat, FormatName, Index, Pattern, TextDataFieldIndex, TextFontColor, TextFontColorDataFieldIndex, TextFontColorMapName, TextFontDataFieldIndex, TextFontMapName, and TextLineCount.
   
• Distances can now be converted from pixels into 1/100 mm and vice versa. For this, the new Gantt property ConvertDistance was implemented; also, the events VcObjectDrawing and VcObjectDrawn received two more parameters that allow to pass the converted data.
   
• In-place editing can now be set separately to the diagram and the table, to groups and to nodes. For this, four different properties have been implemented to the Gantt object: InPlaceEditingOnNodesInTableEnabled, InPlaceEditingOnNodesInDiagramEnabled, InplaceEditingOnGroupsInTableEnabled and InPlaceEditingOnGroupsInDiagramEnabled.