Chart ActiveX MSChart VB6 VB Visual Basic Visual Studio

When installing the ProEssentials evaluation and/or product, the setup program installs the ProEssentials DLL and ActiveX Charting interfaces into the system directory. These files are:

The setup program also registers the ActiveXs with the operating system, which prepares Visual Basic for inclusion of ProEssentials components. You can manually register an ActiveX with "REGSVR32.EXE" found in your system/system32 or syswow64 on 64 bit systems. You can also use this utility to manually un-register an ActiveX by using the "-u" command.

After installation, launch Visual Basic and create a new "Standard EXE" project.

Use the Project / Components... menu item to open the [Components] dialog.

Within the [Components] Dialog, scroll down until you see the Gigasoft entries and select those shown in the left image. Note that the [Controls] tab is active.

Unlike MSChart's cluttered, limited, and undocumented api, ProEssentials breaks our charting functionality between 5 controls. This makes it easier to find related property, methods, and events as our feature-set is large.

Clicking the [OK] button will close the [Components] dialog and places those items selected into Visual Basic's ToolBox as shown.

Click the "Pego" control from the ToolBox and then click and drag a rectangle selection on Form1's canvas.

Note, ProEssentials Std uses control name "PegoStd" and ProEssentials Lite uses control name "PegoLite".

The adjacent image shows what you see. This represents the default state of a ProEssentials Graph. The default state has one subset with four data points. In the course of constructing your own charts, you'll set the properties Subsets and Points which define the quantity of data your chart will hold. You'll then pass data via the YData(subset, point) two dimensional property array. The following section shows example code of passing data. Note, if we were constructing a Scientific Graph (Pesgo), we'd also set XData(subset, point).

ProEssentials uses the terms Subsets and Points but you can think of these as Rows and Columns. Passing data is as simple as filling each Subset with Points worth of data.

Use Visual Basic's View / Code menu to open the Code Window. Then select [Form] from the top left drop-down combo box. The event combobox on the top right will switch to [Load]. Enter the code as shown. Writing this small amount of code will improve your understanding and demonstrate the auto-code completion features supported by ProEssentials.

The first two lines set Subsets and Points. These define the amount of data you'll be passing.

Next, a nested For-Next loop passes random data into the YData(s, p) property array.

Next, MainTitle and SubTitle are set. Note that setting SubTitle to an empty string hides the subtitle.

The YAxisLabel and XAxisLabel are set similarly.

SubsetLabels(0) sets the first subset label. (1) sets the second subset label.

Next, we set various other properties controlling visual aspects.

Finally, PEactions is set to REINITIALIZE_RESETIMAGE which tells ProEssentials you're done setting properties.

Use Visual Basic's Run / Start Menu and you'll see the resulting form to the left. Congratulations, you've just completed your first Visual Basic / ProEssentials implementation.

This example is very simple and you'll likely set other properties such as: Width/Height so that the control uses Form1's client area as needed.

PointLabels which will replace the "1,2,3..." along x axis.

SubsetLineTypes which controls line styles.

SubsetColors which controls line colors.

PlottingMethod which controls the type of chart created, Line, Bar, Area, Point, etc.