Help - Design Questions

[User (Legacy)]

Hi there,

We currently have a J2EE application that, as one of it's features, needs to

deliver highly-formatted content. For charting, we initially implemented

Popcharts because they have a simple Java interface, and we can talk to it

easily with HTTP. I am now porting the functionality to ChartFX IE. Because

our code is in a J2EE application server, we have had to be creative in how

we communicate with the softwareFX stuff.

To pull all this off, what I've done is to use the chartfx XML interface for

both properties and data. So, my Java application code generates the XML for

the properties, and the XML for the data. It then Base64 encodes the

properties XML and data XML and sends them to an ASP I wrote that pulls the

parameters off the URL, base64 decodes them back into their XML, and submits

them to the chart. It sounded pretty quick and easy at the time, but I've

run into several road-blocks:

Here is where my design questions come in...

1) Column names in the XML data: Column names in real life can contain

spaces, and special characters such as "%" and "#". These are invalid

characters in the XML definition:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<DATA>

 <COLUMNS>

  <COLUMN NAME="Market" TYPE="STRING"/>

  <COLUMN NAME="Profit %" TYPE="FLOAT"/>

  <COLUMN NAME="Cost #" TYPE="FLOAT"/>

 </COLUMNS>

 <ROW Market="Acton" Profit %="1457.0"  Cost #="12.0" />

 <ROW Market="Akron" Profit %="3666.0"  Cost #="13.2" />

 <ROW Market="Albuquerque" Profit %="11264.0"  Cost #="7.6" />

</DATA>

For example, the above is invalid XML because Profit % is not a valid key

name, and neither is Cost #. To work around this, I've had to make-up column

names in both the column name definitions, and the Row specifications, and

then pass my custom ASP the real names of the series in parameters. My ASP

then has to troll the parameters looking for the replacements for the series

legends. Here are my questions on this one:

a) Is there a different format of the XML I can generate that won't have

this problem. If not, then will SoftwareFX consider adding additional

strings or pieces in there that would let me rename the items in the column

definition. Such as:

  <COLUMN NAME="Column3" TYPE="FLOAT" LEGEND="Profit %"/>

 The Column named "Market" isn't a series legend. Is it recorded in the

chart anywhere that I need to replace it.

2) I can't specify the location of the series legend in the XML. To work

around this, I've had to pass additional parameters to my ASP to specify the

location of the series legend. The code looks like this:

' Kludge around some things that I cant specify in the XML

if (legStr = "bottom") then

  chart.SerLegBox = true

  chart.SerLegBoxObj.Docked = 258

elseif (legStr = "top") then

  chart.SerLegBox = true

  chart.SerLegBoxObj.Docked = 256

elseif (legStr = "left") then

  chart.SerLegBox = true

  chart.SerLegBoxObj.Docked = 513

elseif (legStr = "right") then

  chart.SerLegBox = true

  chart.SerLegBoxObj.Docked = 515

else

  chart.SerLegBox = false

end if

if (pieLeg = "bottom") then

  chart.LegendBox = true

  chart.LegendBoxObj.Docked = 258

elseif (pieLeg = "top") then

  chart.LegendBox = true

  chart.LegendBoxObj.Docked = 256

elseif (pieLeg = "left") then

  chart.LegendBox = true

  chart.LegendBoxObj.Docked = 513

elseif (pieLeg = "right") then

  chart.LegendBox = true

  chart.LegendBoxObj.Docked = 515

else

  chart.LegendBox = false

end if

chart.ToolBar = false

Pretty nasty, eh? The question is - what am I missing? Do I really have to

do it this way? I'm an old ChartFX 2.x and 3.x developer, and it seems to me

that there used to be SetToolLocation call that would allow me to specify

the location of a given tool without using the chart object. This would be

perfect for the XML. Of course, so would direct access to the specific tool.

Thanks in advance,

    Marc