Legend Tab
We advise
our client colleagues that, since the default position for the legend is
to the right of the chart area, and since our simple Bar chart may be
wider than expected, due to its nature and the amount of data we are
presenting, placing the legend underneath the chart will offer another
means of compressing the overall presentation.
2. Ensure
that the Show legend checkbox is checked, in the upper left corner
of the tab.
3. Ensure
that the Column radio button is selected, in the upper left corner
of the tab.
4. Click
the bottom middle button underneath the Position selection diagram,
to align the Legend box underneath the Column chart area.
5. Click
the Legend Style button that appears immediately beneath the
checkbox labeled Display legend inside plot area (ensure that the
box remains unchecked).
The Style
Properties dialog box appears, defaulted to the Font tab.
6. Make
the settings, listed in Table 6 below, within the Font tab
of the Style Properties dialog box:
Property
|
|
Setting
|
|
|
|
Family
|
|
Arial
|
Size
|
|
9pt
|
Style
|
|
Normal
|
Weight
|
|
Normal
|
Color
|
|
Black
|
Decoration
|
|
None
|
|
|
|
Table 6: Style Properties Dialog Font Tab
The Font
tab of the Style Properties dialog appears, with our settings, as
depicted in Illustration 38.
Illustration 38: Font
Tab of the Style Properties Dialog Box, with Settings
We note
the presence of the Border and Line and Fill tabs, but we will
leave the settings within each at default, at this point.
7. Click OK
to accept changes, and to exit the Style Properties dialog box.
We return
to the Legend tab, once again, where we will leave all else at default.
The Legend tab appears, with our settings, as shown in Illustration 39.
Illustration 39: Chart
Properties Dialog Box Legend Tab with Our Settings
We will
move to the 3D Effect tab in the next subsection.
3D Effect Tab
1. Click
the 3D Effect tab.
We inform our client colleagues that the 3D Effect tab
offers us a means of transforming the ordinarily flat appearance of our Bar
chart to a highly customizable, three dimensional presentation. Here we
can enable 3-D visual effects (via the checkbox to the immediate left of
the Display chart with 3-D visual effect label). The four variables
that we can manipulate are:
-
Horizontal
rotation
-
Perspective
-
Wall thickness
-
Vertical
rotation
Once 3-D visual effects are enabled, a slider
becomes enabled for each of these variables, which we can move to adjust each
variable until we achieve just the degree of readability we desire within the
chart.
We will
leave the settings of the 3D Effect tab at default at this point. The 3D
Effect tab appears, with default settings, as depicted in Illustration 40.
Illustration 40: Chart
Properties Dialog Box 3D Effect Tab with Our Settings
We will examine
the final remaining tab, Filters, in the next subsection.
Filters Tab
1. Click
the Filters tab.
The Filters tab is but one option we have, within Reporting
Services, to filter the data that is displayed within our chart. We advise
our client colleagues that we performed all desired filtering at the dataset
level earlier within our practice session. When this is adequate (that is,
when we can afford to filter at the dataset level for the entire report)
we may achieve performance gains at report runtime, due to the overall
retrieval of less data from the Analysis Services data source. But, we
caution the client representatives, due consideration should be given to the
various points at which we can filter within a given report, to ascertain that
we optimize performance while retaining complete and accurate information for
presentation.
The Filters tab allows us to choose either simple dataset
columns or expressions to filter data at the chart level. This might
make sense as a filter point if we were, say, using multiple data regions
(charts, matrices, tables, lists, or a combination of these, perhaps) that were
sharing the same common dataset(s), but where each region had different
filtering requirements and needed to present different subsets of data from the
underlying dataset(s). Whatever our needs, Reporting Services,
once again, offers flexibility in ways to meet the challenges involved.
The Filters
tab appears, with default settings, as shown in Illustration 41.
Illustration 41: Chart
Properties Dialog Box Filters Tab with Our Settings
2. Click OK
to accept all the settings we have made in the multi-tabbed Chart
Properties dialog box.
The Chart Properties dialog closes,
returning us to the placeholder chart item in Report Designer, Layout tab. We will conclude our practice session in the next section,
where we will verify the operation of our new Bar chart.