New Charts in AppSheet applications - in Preview Program

[benhare]

The following feature has been added to the Preview Program. Feel free to test the feature and report issues or possible improvements in this thread.

App Creators can now make use of our new chart editor and the new and improved charts it can create. There are still features to be added before general availability, and the new charts should not be used in production apps until general availability as they may be unstable in the future.

We’ve been trying to create a charting experience that allows creators to create charts with more flexibility than they currently have, and which tries to be smart about picking the type of chart that will best represent your data.

How do I start creating new charts?

If you have enabled the preview program for your app (make sure to save after turning on the preview program), you should be able to see a toggle to switch between the current experience and the new experience the next time you are viewing a chart under UX → Views. Just press “Try it out” and you should be able to play with it.

How do I use the new editor?

The new editor will show you the columns in your app, and you can drag them into appropriate Configuration slots. We will then try to guess the type of chart that is appropriate for that type of data - however you can change this should you wish.

We’re also very interested in feedback as to the usability and discoverability of the features of this editor, so do please explore and let us know what you found.

What chart types are we supporting?

We are currently supporting bar, line, area, scatter, pie, and doughnut charts.

But what about my existing charts?

You can feel free to play around with this chart editor even on top of an existing chart, as they are co-existing alongside one another. You can switch back to your old chart by just pressing the “Use legacy charts” button.

What features are upcoming?

We’ll be rolling out new improvements to this periodically (so stay tuned to the Release Notes to get an exact accounting of what’s coming!), some notable features that will be coming soon are

• The ability to pick from several different themes for the colours in the chart
• The ability to show and hide the title and the ability to turn off clicking through the data on the chart
• The ability to customize what is in the tooltips that users see when over a chart

And more!

[Mike]

@benhare
Thanks for working on this a letting us try it out. This is an improvement area that will really help. Discoveries so far:

1. When switching an existing chart to use the new editor, it would be better to bring over the current chart setup (eg: Major and Minor Fields).

2. I could never get TRENDLINES to work reliably. Is that setting discontinued in the new editor? At least for Bar charts could not add a trend line.
   (but that would actually be a multi chart type).

3. Love the date SLIDER at the bottom, with ability to use mouse or finger to scroll the visible chart area (in browser)! Works well on web. Wished it worked on mobile! Very cool.

4. Like the ability to hide the DATA button. Sometimes good to have and in other cases good to hide.

5. Where do you set the bar colors? I could find sort order but not COLOR.

6. Definitions of “Major” vs “Minor” axis would help (or X/Y).

7. Chart Types very limited. I am hoping there will be more with this implementation?

more to come as I play more…

[Marc_Dillon]

I noticed that the mouse cursor changed across the entire axis adjuster bar, however it can only be dragged by grabbing on the end. Confused me for a solid couple of minutes.

[TDhers (Thierry D'Hers)]

HI Marc,
The horizontal and vertical axis adjuster bar can do 3 things. You can filter out form the left by dragging the left edge inward, you can filter values out form the right edge by dragging the right edge inward and then you can scroll the whole thing left and right after you have brought these edges inward. That is why the cursor changes, so that you can tank and handle of it and pan it left and right… Give it a try.
I agree it is not easily discoverable but when discovered, it is quite efficiently usable…
Thierry

[TDhers (Thierry D'Hers)]

HI Mike,

For your question number 2 what would trendline means for bar charts (which are used with categorical field on Major)? For now Trendlines are only implemented on Line chart (since they have a continuous field on Major axis, or for Scatter plot which are defined by continuous field on both axis.
Trend line are only meaningful for continuous axis like time or numerical fields.
Are you using bar chart with a Time axis or a numerical measure axis?

For your question 5, there should be a Color drop zone when using a single measure. When you use more than one measure, then the color are already assigned. There is currently not yet the ability to customized color assignment for each measure. I believe Ben and Arthur have this in their future backlog though.

For #6. We have struggled with that. Depending on the chart type, Major can receive Measure or categorical dimension.
Minor is most often a measure only.
But since you can pivot axis using the pivot icon, Major and Minor do not necessarily represent X or Y always and definitely not with Pie or doughnut charts. so it is a bit tricky to find a general term that can work with all Chart type configuration.
Any creative suggestions?

For #7, what other chart type are you hoping the future brings?

Thierry

[tsuji_koichi]

@TDhers

Trend line are only meaningful for continuous axis like time or numerical fields.

There are few bits and pieces as feedback for the latest version of new chart.

Firstly, I noticed the trendline is drawable on the dimention in addition to the continoous time line and numbercal value. See this screenshot

For the x axis, the dimention value is selected, but still we are able to draw trendline.

For other points. It looks odd to me, for some cases as datetime continuous value as selected axis, we are able to draw, but sometime we are not able to drow trendline. For the part part of this short video, you see, i swap the datetime filed from one to other. Then first datetime field not give trendline, while 2nd one gives.

–

On pie/donuts chart, once we select the items, I expected we will jump to the associated set of rows as either table or deck view whicheve the list type view, but strangely, we see detail view…
At the same tim,e we see noisy labels, percentages, row count and lbel names which are not control to show and hide.

–
Lastly, the most of the case where the trendline is useful which is scatter plot. But due to no control over the size of circle and colors (transparency level), trendline is hidden. Also, the tredline seems to be incorrect for some type. You see this on this video.

[tsuji_koichi]

Additions. The auto generated count fileds are useful, but it is defined as dimension wrongly.
It should be correctly as measures.

–

Probably because of this, we are not able to throw count field to color where it should be supported.

[tsuji_koichi]

Firsly, managed to draw the trendline with line char. I know the same is not supported on bar or area, other type of chart apart from scatter plot.
Once we change the chart type, still there is indication on minor section that type of trendline. THis indication may give confusion to the users . Why we have trendline type is indicate on the chart where the trendline is NOT supported.

[TDhers (Thierry D'Hers)]

HI Koichi,

I believe Ben is aware of the first set of issues with trendline and is in the process of fixing it.

For now he has implemented Trend line on Line chart in general and disabled it on Bar chart. So yes if you use categorical dimension on line chart it will allow you to compute a trendline but as you know you should not be using a line chart if you have categorical dimension on Major. It is not analytically accurate. SO I guess we could ask Ben to be more restrictive and only enable Trendline on Continuous filed in Major regardless of the chart type (Bar or line)… Something for Ben and Arthur to ponder on…

Pie/Donught. Being able to jump to underlying table is on the backlog and speced, just not implemented yet.
Customization of label is on the backlog and speced already, just not implemented yet.

Regarding scatter plot, control of size is also speced and on backlog but not implemented yet.
Regarding accuracy of trendline, I will let Ben comment on this.

Thierry

[tsuji_koichi]

@TDhers

you know you should not be using a line chart if you have categorical dimension on Major. It is not analytically accurate.

Yes, for me, it is meaningless to draw the trendline when we have dimension value as axis, but maybe just leave option as is basis, and let the app creator to decide.

I can not come up with immidiate use cases, but there might be.

Option is always an option, take it or not.

[Marc_Dillon]

@TDhers

The horizontal and vertical axis adjuster bar can do 3 things. You can filter out form the left by dragging the left edge inward, you can filter values out form the right edge by dragging the right edge inward and then you can scroll the whole thing left and right after you have brought these edges inward.

Ohhhh. Cool!

[Mike]

(2) I now see trendline once I click the “major” field (using Line chart). Bar chart has a Date/Time axis. Trendlines can be helpful there as well (but more often I am using new AREA chart – love that!). No big deal.

(5) I found the color drop zone, but as you said, only if I have a single measure. I still think option to have color selection would be good for every measure as it allows matching a color scheme.

(3) Really need the slider in mobile as well or the experience is inconsistent. Idea that user could “zoom” in a look closer at a dense chart is very compelling.

new: I created a Line, Area, and Bar chart in new editor, and they render fine in a browser, all three show as Bar charts in the iPhone app. Maybe not ready for mobile? Can you confirm if new charts are only working in web browser at this point (and not in mobile - like iPhone) @benhare

5APR: latest update: new charts are working on iphone. Not sure if coincidence or changes made by Dev team. Either way, works now - including filter slider! Two-finger pinch-zoom (i am sooo happy!). Very nice end user feature.