Styling a Chart programmatically is a nightmare

[Gordon]

I'm having quite a few problems styling a Telerik.Reporting.Chart object. The object itself was created using the designer, but the actual information for the chart, such as title, series, etc is filled in at runtime programmatically.

First of all, I was attempting to set the colors for different series in the following manner:

salesSeries.Appearance.FillStyle.FillType = Telerik.Reporting.Charting.Styles.FillType.Gradient;
salesSeries.Appearance.FillStyle.MainColor = Color.White;
salesSeries.Appearance.FillStyle.SecondColor = Color.Black;

But the colors are overridden by the style placed on the chart in the designer. However, if the FillType is set to Solid, I have no problems setting the color.

Second of all, I found this little oddity when trying to set the background color of the entire chart. When setting the background fill as so:

resultChart.Appearance.FillStyle.FillType = Telerik.Reporting.Charting.Styles.FillType.Solid;
resultChart.Appearance.FillStyle.MainColor = Color.White;

It ended up using the default background from the skin. However, if I change "Color.White" to "Color.FromArgb(255,255,255)" (still white) it works properly.

Finally, how do you change the font size for the axis labels? My X-axis labels are a little too wide for the text that's in them and I need to shrink the font a little, but I couldn't find any way to do so.

[IvanDT]

Hello Gordon,

You should take in consideration the following when you set custom properties in Chart Report Item:

• Chart's Skin - This is with high priority for Chart style(Chart&Series font, Chart&Series borders and etc.);
• Series Palette - This is second priority after Skin for Series Style(Series font, Series borders and etc.). If Chart's Skin is set it will overwrite Series Palette customizations;
• Series(Collection) Appearance - This is with third priority after Series Palette. Here for every chart series you can set font, border and etc. If some of the above properties are applied they will overwrite Series Appearance.
• Custom Palettes - This with forth priority after Series(Collection) Appearance. If some of the above properties are applied they will overwrite the Custom Palettes

The oddities, observed by you, will be taken in consideration for the development of the Chart Report Item. About the font size of the labels in the XAxis, you can find it here:
Chart -> PlotArea -> XAxis -> AxisLabel -> TextBlock -> Appearance -> TextProperties -> Font -> Size

Regards,
IvanDT
the Telerik team

[Gordon]

So it doesn't matter what properties I set where, the gradient colors will always be taken from the chart's skin?
We ended up finding a skin with colors close to what we wanted for the series, and customized the other colors in code, which works well enough for our purposes for now.

The Size attribute of the font mentioned is read-only and cannot be changed. I tried the following code:

//resultChart.PlotArea.XAxis.AxisLabel.TextBlock.Appearance.TextProperties.Font.Size = 8; //Size is Read Only

resultChart.PlotArea.XAxis.AxisLabel.TextBlock.Appearance.TextProperties.Font =
    new System.Drawing.Font(
        resultChart.PlotArea.XAxis.AxisLabel.TextBlock.Appearance.TextProperties.Font.FontFamily,
        8
    );

But that didn't appear to affect anything, either. Any suggestions?

[Steve]

Hello Gordon,

The correct property path is:

resultChart.PlotArea.XAxis.Appearance.TextAppearance.TextProperties.Font.Size

Please excuse us for the misunderstanding.

Regards,
Steve
the Telerik team

[Nirav]

Hello,

I have used the path specified as "chart.PlotArea.XAxis.Appearance.TextAppearance.TextProperties.Font.Size" but its Read Only property so i am not able to set the font size, can you please tell me the exact property where we can set font family and size ?

[Nasko]

Hello Nirav,

In order to set the font family, size and style you can try the following :

chart.PlotArea.XAxis.Appearance.TextAppearance.TextProperties.Font = new System.Drawing.Font("Verdana", 10.2F, FontStyle.Bold);

Regards,
Nasko
Telerik