Legend taking precedence over chart.

[Mark Johnson]

When you size a chart control down really small the legend takes up all the space in the chart control.  Is there a way to have the graph take precedence over the legend?

So that when you size the control down your left with what can fit of the graph and not just show the legend?

 Thanks,

 Mark 

[Frank]

You can add something like this in your code:

 this.chart1.Resize += new System.EventHandler(this.chart1_Resize);

private void chart1_Resize (object sender,EventArgs e) {  chart1.UpdateSizeNow();  if (chart1.LegendBox.Width > chart1.Width / 3) chart1.LegendBox.Width = chart1.Width / 3;  else chart1.LegendBox.AutoSize = true; }

[Mike O'Neal]

I also have this problem. This works fine for controlling the chart size, but if one of the series labels doesn't fit, the entire legend disappears. Is there a way to have it display what will fit in the legend area. Ideally, if a value is too long, it would display an ellipsis at the end and the tooltop would display the entire value. Is that possible?

[Frank]

The code above gives you the option to clip the legend but no ellipsis will be shown.

[Mike O'Neal]

Thanks for the response, Frank.

I looked at the properties and I don't see anything to clip the legend items there. Is there a property to clip the legend or do I need to process them manually somehow? Could you provide a code sample?

 Thanks again,

 Mike

[Frank]

The legend will be automatically clipped when you set a size that is smaller than the size of the text.

For example, setting:

chart.LegendBox.Width = 100;

May cause clipping of the legends if they require more than 100 pixels to show.

[Mike O'Neal]

That is what I originally thought should happen, but when I do that, then if any of the Legends get clipped, they all disappear and the legend box is blank. I see this behavior on all my charts. Do I need to force a redraw on the Legend items or something like that?

[Frank]

We must be doing something different. I do the following code to a default chart (just dropped a new one in a form, no other code, or design-time settings):

chart1.LegendBox.Width = 120;

chart1.Series[0].Text = "Series 1 is pretty long";

chart1.Series[1].Text =

"Series 2";chart1.Series[2].Text = "Series 3";

chart1.LegendBox.Visible =

true;

And I got the attached image

If your results are different, please attach a sample program that reproduces the problem.

[Mike O'Neal]

I don't think so. I created a new project and pasted your code into the form constructor without change and here is what I see. If I shorten the first one to "Series 1" then it shows up. 

I also tried docking the chart and adding a Resize event with the following line in it.

chart1.LegendBox.Width = chart1.Width / 3;

Now, if I expand it to just short of the length of the long name, it will clip the last character. Any wider shows all names. Any narrower shows like the picture I attached.

 I think I am one version back on the controls. I did add references to the project for ChartFX.WinForms which is Version 7.0.2540.35369 and ChartFX.WinForms.Base which is Version 7.0.2540.35252.

[Frank]

Please download the latest Service Pack. That's what I am using.

[Mike O'Neal]

Yes, that seems to have fixed it. Thanks!!!

If anyone else is interested, the code you provided works fine if the chart is fairly static. However, my users have the ability to add/remove series to/from the chart dynamically and since the chart isn't resized at that point, I still had a problem. So, whenever the series are changed I call the resize code as well. However, the UpdateSizeNow() method doesn't update the legend with AutoSize set to false, so I had to set it to true again first or it was only right every other time and there were painting problems.

Also, is there a way I can add a tooltip to the legend item with the full value? I can only find tooltips that apply to the chart itself.

[Mike O'Neal]

I have another chart that has a similar problem except the long values are coming from the data as labels on the right side. Is there a way to limit those in length similarly?

[Mike O'Neal]

Oops, I meant on the left side. I have a gantt chart with a fixed size legend on the right with the series labels in it and data labels on the left for each row that come from a fieldmap of usage type label created on the fly by user selections from a list. Sometimes the data values can be really long and make the chart disappear. Can I restrict the size of what is shown without changing the actual data value? Or, can I force the chart area to a minimum size?

 Thanks again for your help!