| Chapter 2: C# Visual Studio ASP.NET Charting FrameWork 4.8 VS2022-2015 |
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ProEssentials WebForm interfaces may be used to serve dynamically generated images and ActiveX binary states.
ProEssentials' web strength is in rendering quality and robustness: Where a chart shape, size, and large annotation property set can automatically produce a quality image packed with details.
You will implement server side behavior in pairs of files. One file, either .HTML or .ASPX will contain an image tag with source attributes pointing to a secondary .ASPX page which will dynamically generate the respective binary content.
See a similar pre-built example within the included ProEssentials10/PE10WebDemo directory.
The ProEssentials WebForm interfaces have a few key properties and one event which will control server-side specific functionality. These are as follows:
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RenderingType
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This property controls how this instance of the control is rendered.
Possible settings are:
- ImageMap, rendered as an image tag followed by an ImageMap tag.
- BinaryImageStream, render as binary data representing image data.
- BinaryDataStream, use with client side LoadFromUrl method to update chart within your EXE or IE site.
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RenderedImageType
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When RenderingType is set to BinaryImageStream, this property controls the format of the binary image data. Possible settings are SVG, PNG, and JPEG. SVG producing an HTML5 chart.
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ImageUrl
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When RenderingType is set to ImageMap, this property must point to a URL identifying an .ASPX page containing a ProEssentials control with its RenderingType property set to BinaryImageStream.
When RenderingType is set to ActiveX, this property must point to a URL identifying an .ASPX page containing a ProEssentials control with its RenderingType property set to BinaryActiveXStream.
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Also, there is one Event and one EventArgs which is used to implement image map support.
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PeImageMap
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This event is only used when the RenderingType property is set to ImageMap.
This event will be triggered (generally multiple occurrences) during the image generation process when hot spots have been enabled via properties found within the PeUserInterface.HotSpot namespace.
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ImageMapEventArgs
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This object is passed to the PeImageMap event to communicate parameters with the developer.
Members include these properties:
- HotSpotType, defined as Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.HotSpotType.
- Data1, its meaning is dependent upon HotSpotType.
- Data2, its meaning is dependent upon HotSpotType.
Members also include these write only properties:
- ToolTip, optionally set to assign tool tip text to image map area.
- Href, optionally set to assign a URL to image map area.
- Attributes, optionally set to assign attributes to map area such as VBScript.
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It is recommended that the namespace: Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums be included at the top of your source code files utilizing ProEssentials. In C#.NET, use the usings keyword. For example:
using
Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums;
Walk-Through:
The following information demonstrates how to create your first ASP.NET / ProEssentials implementation using the C# language. It discusses using ASP.NET to serve up a dynamically generated PNG image. Also refer to the "ReadMe.htm", "AspNetReadMe.htm", and "AspReadMe.htm" files installed onto your system with the eval/product (accessible via Start menu).
1) Start Visual Studio.NET and create a new WebSite project targeting an ASP.NET Web Forms Site using C# language.
2) When the new project opens, you will be presented the design view of "Default.aspx".
If you have already installed the ProEssentials WebForm interfaces, skip to step 4.
| Customize Toolbox... Dialog |
Adding ProEssentials to Visual Studio.NET... |
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3) Installing WebForm interfaces into Visual Studio.NET
VS2015 Instructions, VS2022 2019 Framework 4.8 projects will be similar.
- Under the Tools menu, select [Choose Toolbox Items...],
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If not selected, left click the [.NET Framework Components] tab,
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Left click the [Browse...] button and find the file "Gigasoft.ProEssentialsWeb.dll" found in the DotNet48\x64 folder where you installed ProEssentials. By default, this should be located at "c:\ProEssentials10\DotNet48\x64",
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Select the file "Gigasoft.ProEssentialsWeb.dll" and close the [Open File] dialog,
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The [Choose Toolbox Items] dialog should now show 6 highlighted controls: Pe3doWeb, PegoWeb, PepcoWeb, PepsoWeb, PesgoWeb.
and Pedo
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Close the dialog and the 6 new ProEssentials components will be within the toolbox.
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| Default.aspx... |
Adding ProEssentials to a Form... |
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4) Add a new paragraph to the Default.aspx page below the heading. Click the PegoWeb tool icon in palette and drag the tool to your new paragraph. The adjacent image shows what you see.
This chart represents the default state of a ProEssentials Graph Object. The default state has one subset with four data points. In the course of constructing your own charts, you'll set the properties
PeData.Subsets
and
PeData.Points
which define the quantity of data your chart will hold. You'll then pass data via the
PeData.Y(subset, point)
two dimensional property array. The following section shows example code of passing data.
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.
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Adjusting design time settings... |
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5) Double check that the RenderingType property within the Properties window shows the default state of ImageMap. It may be empty, and adding the setting clarifies the intent.
6) Within the Properties window, change the ImageUrl property to "Default2.aspx". We will add this below.
7) Within Visual Studio's main menu, select [WebSite] and then [Add New Item...] and add a new Webform. Accept the default name of "Default2.aspx".
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| Default2.aspx... |
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8) Double click the PegoWeb tool within the toolbox and this places an instance of the PegoWeb component within "Default2.aspx".
9) Within the Properties window, change the RenderingType property to BinaryImageStream.
10) Within Visual Studio's main menu, select [View] and then [Markup].
11) Remove all HTML content from this page. The resulting Markup or HTML Source content should only be tags...
NOTE: It is important the entire page looks as above. No ascii characters can be outside < > tags, not even a space character. Any ascii could corrupt the binary data being served to Default.aspx on the client. The client is expecting pure binary data from Default2.aspx which represents an image. If there is mistakenly ascii, Default.aspx may show a red x instead of an image.
12) Within Visual Studio's main menu, select [View] and then [Code].
13) Add the following code to the Page_Load event handler. Type it in manually to see examples of embedded XML help and other Intellisense features.
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PegoWeb1.PeString.MainTitle = "Hello World";
PegoWeb1.PeString.SubTitle = "";
PegoWeb1.PeData.Subsets = 2;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Points = 6;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[0, 0] = 10; PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[0, 1] = 30;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[0, 2] = 20; PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[0, 3] = 40;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[0, 4] = 30; PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[0, 5] = 50;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[1, 0] = 15; PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[1, 1] = 63;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[1, 2] = 74; PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[1, 3] = 54;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[1, 4] = 25; PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[1, 5] = 34;
PegoWeb1.PeString.PointLabels[0] = "Jan";
PegoWeb1.PeString.PointLabels[1] = "Feb";
PegoWeb1.PeString.PointLabels[2] = "Mar";
PegoWeb1.PeString.PointLabels[3] = "Apr";
PegoWeb1.PeString.PointLabels[4] = "May";
PegoWeb1.PeString.PointLabels[5] = "June";
PegoWeb1.PeString.SubsetLabels[0] = "For .Net Framework";
PegoWeb1.PeString.SubsetLabels[1] = "or MFC, ActiveX, VCL";
PegoWeb1.PeString.YAxisLabel = "Simple Quality Rendering";
PegoWeb1.PeColor.SubsetColors[0] = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(120, 0, 180, 0);
PegoWeb1.PeColor.SubsetColors[1] = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(80, 0, 0, 130);
PegoWeb1.PeColor.BitmapGradientMode = true;
PegoWeb1.PeColor.QuickStyle = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.QuickStyle.LightShadow;
PegoWeb1.PeColor.Desk = System.Drawing.Color.FromArgb(255, 122, 192, 218);
PegoWeb1.PeTable.Show = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.GraphPlusTable.Both;
PegoWeb1.PeData.Precision = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.DataPrecision.NoDecimals;
PegoWeb1.PeFont.Label.Bold = true;
PegoWeb1.PePlot.Method = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.GraphPlottingMethod.Bar;
PegoWeb1.PePlot.Option.GradientBars = 8;
PegoWeb1.PePlot.Option.BarGlassEffect = true;
PegoWeb1.PeLegend.Location = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.LegendLocation.Left;
PegoWeb1.PePlot.DataShadows = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.DataShadows.ThreeDimensional;
PegoWeb1.PeFont.FontSize = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.FontSize.Large;
PegoWeb1.PeConfigure.RenderEngine = Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.RenderEngine.GdiPlus;
PegoWeb1.PeConfigure.AntiAliasGraphics = true;
PegoWeb1.PeConfigure.AntiAliasText = true;
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Once entered, select this code and copy it to clipboard.
14) Within Visual Studio's main menu, select [Window] and then "Default.aspx" the first Webform created with project.
15) Within Visual Studio's main menu, select [View] and then [Code]
16) Paste the above code into the Page_Load event handler for "Default.aspx". Thus both "Default.aspx.cs" and "Default2.aspx.cs" now contain similar Page_Load code.
17) Now, make sure last line is add one additional line of code to the "Default.aspx.s"
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PegoWeb1.PeUserInterface.HotSpot.Data = true;
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The Page_Load handler should look similar to...
18) Within Visual Studio's main menu, select [Window] and then [Default.aspx]. Left click the PegoWeb control within the form to give it the focus. Then left click the [Event] icon within the [Properties] window. Double click the PeImageMap event which opens the file "Default.aspx.cs" located at the PegoWeb1_PeImageMap event handler.
19) Add the following code to the _PeImageMap handler...
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if (e.HotSpotType == Gigasoft.ProEssentials.Enums.HotSpotType.DataPoint)
{
e.ToolTip = "Point " + e.Data2.ToString() + " with a value of " + PegoWeb1.PeData.Y[e.Data1, e.Data2].ToString();
}
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20) Save and run the project. Your browser will show an image as follows. Move the mouse over bars to see the image map content.
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| Run the project... |
Serving up a PNG... |
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You'll notice that nearly identical code was required for "Default.aspx.cs" and "Default2.aspx.cs" except for the hot spot code which triggers the PeImageMap event. Anytime you develop with image maps, you will need to have similar initialization code for both forms. Also, the control size on both forms must be set to the same size.
This completes this walkthrough. If you do not wish to support image maps, ignore the PeUserInterface.HotSpot and the PeImageMap event handler code. If not using image maps, you will only need code within "Default2.aspx.cs" and Default could use a generic html image IMG tag instead of a chart object.
For SVG: remove the HotSpot.Data setting from both pages and set RenderedImageType for Default2.aspx from PNG to SVG.
For ActiveX: and working with Internet Explorer, change the RenderingType setting for "Default.aspx" to ActiveX, and the RenderingType setting on "Default2.aspx" to BinaryActiveXStream. The browser will contain a fully interactive charting control. Right click the control to access the user interface. Read the AspReadme for client-side examples and CAB file issues.
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