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Using Dashboard Styles
Dashboard Styles are a range of layout options that act on all the elements shown in a diagram, to arrange those elements in different grid formats in which the elements are rendered as blocks with common borders. The styles are designed to be used with Dashboard diagrams containing Chart objects. Using the Dashboard Styles for diagrams you can create impressive reports or track KPIs, metrics and other key data points relevant to your business. If you need to re-order a Chart position, you can manually drag and drop the chart, and it will automatically snap into place with all other charts forming around it.
We encourage you to experiment with the styles for different numbers of Chart, different types of Chart, and different combinations. This example is a useful arrangement of five charts in the Horizontal - Continuous (3 Row) style. A vertical style might be more appropriate for Timeline charts, which tend to be flatter.
If there are many Chart elements, one of the Continuous styles will provide a scrollable grid of the elements, allowing you to view all the Charts.
Access
Open the diagram containing Chart elements that you want to lay out, click on the diagram background, then use the ribbon or keyboard method to open the Properties window for the diagram. In the 'Appearance' section, in the 'Dashboard Style' field, click on the drop-down arrow and select the style to apply.
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Ribbon |
Start > Design > Create > Properties |
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Keyboard Shortcuts |
| Create | Properties |
Grid Styles
These styles arrange the Chart elements into the smallest uniform grid, such as 2x2, 2x3 or 3x3, which will be sized to completely fill the current view. The longer axis - if there is one - will be determined by whether you select a Vertical or a Horizontal style. For example, a Vertical style will format six Charts in a grid three charts long and two charts high, whereas a Horizontal style will make the grid two charts long and three charts high.
However, if the number of Charts cannot form a uniform grid, there will be one element left; these styles position that remaining element on a specific face of the grid.
Style |
Description |
See also |
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Vertical Right - Grid Left |
The element with the Z order of 1 is selected as the 'odd' element and placed on the right of the diagram, with the rest of the elements in a grid on its left. |
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Vertical Left - Grid Right |
The element with the highest Z order (such as 5, or 7, or 9) is selected as the 'odd' element and placed on the left of the diagram, with the rest of the elements in a grid on its right. |
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Horizontal Top - Grid Bottom |
The element with the highest Z order (such as 5, or 7, or 9)is selected as the 'odd' element and placed on the top of the diagram, with the rest of the elements in a grid below it. |
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Horizontal Bottom - Grid Top |
The element with the Z order of 1 is selected as the 'odd' element and placed on the bottom of the diagram, with the rest of the elements in a grid above it. |
Horizontal/Vertical Styles
Style |
Description |
See also |
|---|---|---|
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None |
No style is applied. If a style was previously applied, None does not change the previous layout, but any restrictions imposed by the previous style - such as constraining objects to the view - will not now be applied. |
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Vertical |
Lays out all elements vertically within the size of the view. This makes all elements the same width as the current view, and divides the height evenly between all the elements on the diagram (for example, three elements will each have the total width and one third of the height of the view). You cannot directly change the height and width of an element. |
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Vertical - Continuous (1 Column) |
Lays out all elements vertically, with some elements being outside the view and displayed using the scroll bar if necessary. Each element is the full width of the view; you cannot directly change the width of the element, but you can change its height. |
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Vertical - Continuous (2 Column) |
Lays out elements vertically, divided equally between two columns, with some elements being outside the view and displayed using the scroll bar if necessary. If the number of elements is not even, one element occupies the full width of the view; otherwise each element occupies half the width of the view. You cannot change the width of an individual element, but you can change the element height. |
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Vertical - Continuous (3 Column) |
Lays out elements vertically, divided equally between three columns, with some elements being outside the view and displayed using the scroll bar if necessary. If the number of elements is not divisible by three, one element occupies the full width of the view, or two elements each occupy half the width of the view; otherwise each element occupies a third the width of the view. You cannot change the width of an individual element, but you can change the element height. |
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Horizontal |
Lays out all elements horizontally within the size of the view. This makes all elements the same height as the current view, and divides the width evenly between all the elements on the diagram (for example, three elements will each occupy the total height and one third of the width). You cannot directly change the height and width of an element. |
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Horizontal - Continuous (1 Row) |
Lays out all elements horizontally, with some elements being outside the view and displayed using the scroll bar if necessary. Each element is the full height of the view; you cannot change the height of an individual element, but you can change the width. |
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Horizontal - Continuous (2 Row) |
Lays out elements horizontally, divided equally between two rows, with some elements being outside the view and displayed using the scroll bar if necessary. If the number of elements is not even, one element occupies the full height of the view, otherwise each element occupies half the height of the view. You cannot change the height of an individual element, but you can change the width. |
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Horizontal - Continuous (3 Row) |
Lays out elements horizontally, divided equally between three rows, with some elements being outside the view and displayed using the scroll bar if necessary. If the number of elements is not divisible by three, one element occupies the full height of the view, or two elements occupy half the height of the view, otherwise each element occupies a third the height of the view. You cannot change the height of an individual element, but you can change the width. |
Notes
- The styles as a group are effectively permanent; once a diagram has had a style applied, you cannot change the layout other than by applying another style, and you cannot restore the original un-styled layout
- After a style has been applied, if you need to re-order the elements you can do so by simply dragging them into their new position
- Resizing the view will also resize the elements to fit the view, appropriate to the dimension that the style fixes
- Whilst the styles will operate on diagrams of any type, you might obscure information if you apply the styles to elements other than Charts; for example, as the elements are automatically laid out in a grid, significant relationships or positions of elements would not be maintained