Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 3997
Flexible source ranges - Add option, to select x-values for different y-values / columns separately
Last modified: 2013-02-24 21:21:59 UTC
Using: Suse linux 7.3, kernel 2.4.17, openoffice build 641d linux net install Now: Having data in columns x to x+n, colum x is used as x-value for the <-values defined by columns [x+1,x+n]. Expected: Make it possible to select something like: y-values in column x+1 uses data in column x as x-values; y-values in column x+3 uses data in column x+2 as x-values and so on.
Hi Michael, I do not completely get you're intention. Do you want to create an XY-Chart? This already exists. Best regards, Peter
Well, basically I want to create an xy-plot. I know that this option exists and use it rather often. But unfortunately this option works only for the following (or similar datasets): x-values: 1; 2; 3; 4; y1-values: 10;11;12;13 y2-values: 20;21;22;23 y1 and y2 are based on one set (colum or row) of x-values. If I select these rows and create a diagram it is assumed that y1(x=1)=10, y1(x=2)=11 and y2(x=1)=20, y2(x=1)=21. Now assume that one has the following datasets: x1: 1; 2; 3; 4; y1:10;11;12;13; and x2:1.1;2.1;3.1;4.1 y2:20;21;22;23; Creating a diagram should plot: y1(x1=1)=10; y1(x1=2)=11 y2(x2=1.1)=20; y2(x2=2.1)=21 These 2 curves should be plotted in the same diagram. The x-values for the points of y1 and y2 are not the same but differ slightly. In Excel - this is the competitor, right? - the data used for diagrams can be defined as follows: For every curve plotted one can define the colum used for y-values AS WELL as the colum used for x-values. Therefore it is possible to plot 2 curves in one diagram using completely independent data sets (indepentend x- and y-values for each curve) for the 2 curves. Well, I hope this explains what I would like to see in OpenOffice. Otherwise I will try again to explain further what I am trying to say :) (Writing as a non native English speaker I might not be able to express myself as good as I would like.... Would some screenshots help?)
Hi Falko, maybe an interesting feature for scientific charts. best regrads, Peter
FT->MMP: This is something for your "New Chart" list. It also something for MS interoperability.
changed summary. Will be evaluated for OOo 2.0 Chart.
*** Issue 22112 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 22171 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 21063 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 21652 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 21653 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 21654 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 23694 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Created attachment 12439 [details] example of problem i.e. simple test case
Allowing multiple x1,x2,...xn that are independent for y1,y2,...yn will bring OO charting up to the current capability of Excel.
*** Issue 25083 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 23431 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 24164 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
changed target to Office later
*** Issue 26076 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 27899 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 29692 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 29916 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I'm disappointed to see this now marked as target: OOo later. This lack of functionality is a showstopper for me (and almost all other scientific users). This is not an "interesting feature" for me and other chemists, physicists, biologiest etc etc, it's essential. If OOo can't do this, then I have to use other solutions, e.g. Excel. Please reconsider this for 2.0!
I totally agree that this is a major show stopper for the utility of OO. I think Peter doesn't and didn't really understand the impact of this feature to most scientific users. IF it is not put in until LATER then OO will lag significantly even with version 2.0.
*** Issue 33859 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 34263 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 35677 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 36741 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I think this features is very important for engineering, as we do need to display lots of charts to compare and perform some statistical analysis. Without such capability, it will be a real stopper for and MFC or engineering company to switch over to Open Office. Currently evaluating the version 1.9.62, it do have many nice to have features in terms of my environment but without this, I need to consider twice before switching over. Best Regards, Jonathan
*** Issue 37366 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 37916 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 38855 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 40336 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Is some body doing something about this? This is the single main issue to be solved for my colleagues and me to abandon MSOffice and adopt OpenOffice!
*** Issue 39990 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 40021 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
1.9.77 here and it's still not working
This feature is indeed very important (as you can alone see by the number of duplicates). The structure of the current chart implementation does not allow a flexible assignment of spreadsheet columns as different x-values. This fact was one of the main reasons to decide to re-implement the chart. Unfortunately the new chart will not make it into OOo 2.0, that's why this important issue is on OOo Later.
The work for this feature had already been started. See for example the specification at http://specs.openoffice.org/chart/dataselection/FlexibleSourceRangeSelection.sxw. The problem with this feature is, that the old chart code has come to the end of its capabilities. So we started to create a new chart to be able to integrated some important missing features from one of them is this. Creating a complete new module is a big task and we will not manage it for the next version as far as we can see. I am sorry about that. IHA->MMP: Please give this issue to me or BM as we are working on this already.
// assigned to Ingrid.
// set to started and set type to feature
// set Prio to 2
// changed summary to contain 'Flexible source ranges'
*** Issue 42876 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 44648 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Note that there is a solution to display such chart: Gather all your x-data in ONE colomun, with each set (serie in french) after each: Col A ; Col B ; Col C ; Col D... x1 data ; y1 data ; void ; void (each line for a new data) x2 data ; void ; y2 data ; void x3 data ; void ; void ; y3 data This solution is quite complex to carry out, moreover when x data and y data result from long calculations. I put an attachment with an example of such chart.
Created attachment 24001 [details] Exemple of chart with x1, x2 and x3 data linked with y1, y2 and y3 data
*** Issue 46584 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 30993 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
added keywwords
IHA->BM: Please take this one instead of duplicate Issue 30993.
*** Issue 29013 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 3823 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 46892 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 47086 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 47085 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 47465 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I'm going to bolster this one too... I am a scientific user and I figured this out when trying to import an Excel file that contained multiple x,y data sets in one chart. What appeared in the chart after importing was completely incorrect, because OOo used the first x-column as the x-value for the entire chart. Thus, I had to go back to Excel for this project. I hope this one is expedited.
*** Issue 48006 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Can anyone bring the community up to date on where we are at with this feature?
*** Issue 49803 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 50607 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
To underline the importance: A very hurting and limiting lack for me, too. The answer unfortunately is Excel...
*** Issue 50655 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 34838 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 35123 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
set target
That is not a solution in many cases, since it implies making a completelt new page just for graph preparation. This has been the feature that prevented me from using OOO 1.X and it has not been changed in OOO2.0 Same thing with the ability to delete individual series
Charts do not work well and they know it. You can see that recently a target of 3.0 was specified. Hopefully in a year or so things will be a lot better.
*** Issue 56969 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 58790 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
The problems with Chart do the product no good. May I suggest an intermediate target (2.5) be created and the multitude of chart problems rolled up soon. Much of the work had already been started.
*** Issue 61314 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
I second Michael Zimmermann's comment. For scientific data presentation in xy plots the open office procedure to do that is rather tidious compared to Excel. In particular if you want to change x datasets for an existing plot. What I basically need is the option to select a data range (data in columns or rows), define the selected range as x values and select and define corresponding y-values range just the same way. In an existing xy-plot I need the option to edit/change/swap either the set of x values, the set of y values or both. Regards Ewald
*** Issue 60556 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Not that it needs it, but I thought I'd reiterate the sentiment. As a scientific/engineering user, this is a complete cold stopper for me. As far as I'm concerned, without this capability, Chart is useless, and without Chart, Calc is useless. And heck, if I can't use Calc to arrange my data, then a lot of what I'd use Writer for goes out the window, so Writer becomes about 1/2 useless.
As jacech just commented, that really makes Calc useless. Unfortunatelly, I don't need Writer that much as Calc so the whole oo.org is nearly obsolete for me. Shame I still have to use MS office. The should be the prime priority of the project now.
Why are you assuming that this issue does not have top priority? It is P2, and we are working on it. As said before, we cannot integrate this into OOo 2.0.2 or 2.0.3, because we are doing a complete rewrite of the chart code. And unless the new implementation has at least the same functionality as the old implementation, we cannot integrate it. Thus the target OOo 3.0. We are making progress, but there are so many little (and not so little) things you have to implement, that it takes longer than we first thought. Just noted, that this issue in still "New". Changed it to "Started".
I have followed this issue for a while and while my programming skills are not up to the people working on them I have to be thankful that they are looking into it. I can't talk for anybody else but I guess that Quattro Pro v5 or 6 for DOS had one of the best interfaces for creation/edition of charts, and would be great if you guys could look into it.
The question remains where do we get Quattro Pro for DOS, and more importantly where do we get DOS and on what computer can we still install this stuff ;-)
added me to CC
Well I can only add to what has been said many, many times before. We are yet another engineering form wishing desperately to move away from MS Office. But we have hundreds of Excel Spreadsheets that won't show correctly in OO. This is about as big a show stopper for us as there is. I know there is a lot of work to be done, but this feature has been asked for since April 2002 ........ a long time ago ....
All who are interested in this feature are welcome to have a look at the developersnapshot of the current chart reimplementation available for download on the OpenOffice Chart website: http://graphics.openoffice.org/chart/chart.html
Thanks for these news. It warms my heart (this is a french expression, may be it has no signification in english), and help me to wait till version... 3
*** Issue 2390 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 13437 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Changed Target to 2.x
I submitted an enhancement request for OOo Chart (issue 67518) and was refered to this issue. The basis of my issue was to improve the ability to select and edit series sets similar to Quattro Pro. For those that don't know QP, I uploaded a pdf of a basic tutorial on using QP. I also uploaded a representative spreadsheet of real data that I work with and have run into the same issues with selecting various X-series and Y-series. As well as the ablity to edit the series after the chart has been created without having to recreate and possibly lose previous work done as presently happens. I focussed on the UI as this is what we really deal with when we are creating or editting a chart. I wish I had nice neat and orderly sets of data that would work nicely in OOo but that isn't real life. :) I have looked at the development snapshot and it doesn't work as needed. I use Linux and I can run it on Linux without disrupting my installed version of OOo. It is worth a try to help the developers. My first comment is that the development version doesn't allow flexiblility to work with X series or Y series of data, even through it tries and is a major improvement over the present system it still leaves allot out that needs to be added to adress this issue.
->mestech: What do you mean by "doesn't work as needed" and "leaves out a lot"? This kind of comment is absolutely useless. BTW. There is also a specification for this feature on http://specs.openoffice.org/chart/dataselection/FlexibleSourceRangeSelection.odt (Note that this is a newer ODF file than the one mentioned before in the comments)
->mestech: Sorry, I didn't see that you added quite some comments in Issue 67518. I thought you were referring to this Issue (3997) when saying "this Issue". BTW., I didn't notice that the .sxw file of the spec is still available. I will delete it to avoid confusion.
Having played with milestone 7, this feature is available and works but is slow (Redrawing while changing values{put the input dialog over the new chart to speed up}). There are major problems with the interface but those can be resolved in time. The selection of data is not working with a mouse. You have to assign the legend to a cell and use that series. (issues 11890, 64825) Also, it would be nice to have the ability to create a new series and then select it from the worksheet if you have to modify it later. It would be nice if the series arrangements were displayed as a table with X and Y for all the series visible at the same time. This would make it easier when editting the chart later. Of course why do you need a Data Range and a Data Series dialog? It repeats the input procedure. Sure the "data range" is generic but for various X and Y series it is useless. When I created a new chart using the chart_with_multiple_x_and_y_data.sxc example, I ended up with an empty data range at first and no data in any series after selecting the various ranges using the mouse. I had to create each series individually. Also getting rid of the data range could prevent a problem if someone goes to edit the chart later and edits this range instead of the individual X/Y values In fact, with the chart that I created, when I tried to make a change in the "data range", it destroyed the chart. All I did was deselect the "First row as label" box and may data range disappeared. All my series disappeared as well. Changing the values for X and Y values works well. :) Now if I only had more than 65K rows I would be super happy but that is another issue.
Created attachment 38537 [details] QuattroPro tutuorial as an example
As Quattro Pro is mentioned by a few posters here, I uploaded a tutorial on using QP. Many people have never had the pleasure. On page 3 is a good example of their dialog box for selecting ranges. QP, at least this version does not have the ability of mulitiple X axis. The arrow on the right of the series box, when clicked takes you to the worksheet to select the series.
My symptom is: If I select 'First Column as Label', 'Data in Columns' and data source: $Sheet1.$B$1:$B$16;$Sheet1.$A$1:$A$16 (ie column B is the first column in the data source) then I get column A as the labels in OpenOffice 2.0. Does this issue address my symptom? (I got here from issue 35123, which I think did address it.)
->j_cone: The symptom you describe is the same in the new chart. There are two dialogs. One is for taking the data from a rectangular region, which takes all ranges in the range-string and glues them together, so your range becomes A1:B16, from which A is the first column. To get B as labels and A for data, you have to use the other dialog (the second tab). There you can define the range B1:B16 for categories and A1:A16 as y-values of the first data series.
Fixed in Milestone 9 of CWS chart2mst3 (chart2 beta release). See http://graphics.openoffice.org/chart/chart.html for download in the near future (hopefully this week).
->kla: Please check and verify in Milestone 9.
This is great! Do these milestones include ongoing work in all of OOo or is it just 2.0.4? with only chart changes?
*** Issue 68510 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
It is Great to hear that we have good news on Chart2 developments. I hope this will implemented soon. (but I did not see the exact target yet, just OOo 2.x) If it is really FIXED, can we have this for OOo 2.2 please ? Thanks
*** Issue 72716 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
changed target to 2.3
corrected URL to Specification
*** Issue 75670 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
*** Issue 76604 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
Issue 76604 was closed as a duplicate of this issue (3997), but I think they are different. 3997 addresses multiple data sets, while 76604 stated a need for flexibility in selecting x-axis labels. It is sometimes desirable to have x-axis label information reside other than in the first column. If x-axis flexibility is indeed implemented in version 2.3.0 I am unable to find it.
Created attachment 44907 [details] TestCaseSpecification
TCS attached => verified
Created attachment 44911 [details] Testdocuments for Test Case Specification
*** Issue 37791 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***
It's OK for me with m213 -> I close this issue
I've just tried OOo 2.3 and the new plotting component is fantastic! It works wonderfully! At last, I can recommend Calc to people at work as a viable alternative for routine data processing. This is a big milestone for Ooo. Thank you very very much!