Creating RadChart Programmatically

RadChart has been deprecated since Q3 2014 and is no longer recommended for use, as it does not support modern browsers. We strongly recommend using RadHtmlChart, Telerik's modern client-side charting component. To transition from RadChart to RadHtmlChart, refer to the following migration articles:

• Migrating Series
• Migrating Axes
• Migrating Date Axes
• Migrating Databinding
• Features parity

Explore the RadHtmlChart documentation and online demos to determine how it fits your development needs.

The steps below show how to create a minimal RadChart programmatically.

See the "create a more complex chart programmatically" topic to see how multiple series are created and how appearance can be tailored at run-time.

See the topic "Multiple Chart Types in a Single Chart" to see how multiple series area created programmatically and given different ChartSeriesTypes.

Once the chart is created, the critical steps are creating the ChartSeries and ChartSeriesItem collections. There are two approaches to creating chart series objects. One is to use the default ChartSeries constructor and assign its properties. A second route is to use the RadChart CreateSeries() method to set a number of important properties at once and return the constructed chart series.

1. First add the namespaces that support the objects to be referenced. The Telerik.WebWinControls.UI namespace supports the RadChart declaration and the Telerik.Charting namespace supports the other RadChart objects, e.g. ChartSeries and ChartSeriesItem.

   C#

    using Telerik.Web.UI;
    using Telerik.Charting;		

   VB

    Imports Telerik.Web.UI
    Imports Telerik.Charting

2. Next construct the RadChart itself. To the RadChart instance, assign the chart title using the ChartTitle.TextBlock.Text property.

   C#

    RadChart radChart = new RadChart();
    radChart.ChartTitle.TextBlock.Text = "My RadChart";		
    

   VB

    Dim radChart As New RadChart()
    radChart.ChartTitle.TextBlock.Text = "My RadChart"	

3. Construct a new ChartSeries object. Assign a name to the ChartSeries. Set the ChartSeries.Type to be Bar. Using the ChartSeries.AddItem() method, add a series of ChartSeriesItem objects to the series Items collection. AddItem() takes as parameters a double "Value" and a string "Label".

   C#

    // Create a ChartSeries and assign its name and chart type
    ChartSeries chartSeries = new ChartSeries();
    chartSeries.Name = "Sales";
    chartSeries.Type = ChartSeriesType.Bar;
    // add new items to the series,
    // passing a value and a label string
    chartSeries.AddItem(120, "Internet");
    chartSeries.AddItem(140, "Retail");
    chartSeries.AddItem(35, "Wholesale");	
    

   VB

    ' Create a ChartSeries and assign its name and chart type
    Dim chartSeries As New ChartSeries()
    chartSeries.Name = "Sales"
    chartSeries.Type = ChartSeriesType.Bar
    ' add new items to the series,
    ' passing a value and a label string
    chartSeries.AddItem(120, "Internet")
    chartSeries.AddItem(140, "Retail")
    chartSeries.AddItem(35, "Wholesale")	

4. Finally, add the ChartSeries to the RadChart Series collection and add the RadChart to the page.

   C#

    // add the series to the RadChart Series collection
    	radChart.Series.Add(chartSeries);
    // add the RadChart to the page.
    	this.Page.Controls.Add(radChart);	
    	

   VB

    ' add the series to the RadChart Series collection
    radChart.Series.Add(chartSeries)
    ' add the RadChart to the page.
    Me.Page.Controls.Add(radChart) 	

5. The finished chart in the running project should look like this example:

   

   The alternative to using the ChartSeries object constructor and assigning properties is to use the RadChart CreateSeries() method that lets you pass several properties in the call, including Name, MainColor, SecondColor and ChartSeriesType.

   C#

    ChartSeries chartSeries = radChart.CreateSeries("Sales",
    System.Drawing.Color.RoyalBlue,
    System.Drawing.Color.LightSteelBlue,
    ChartSeriesType.Bar);				

   VB

    Dim chartSeries As ChartSeries = radChart.CreateSeries("Sales", System.Drawing.Color.RoyalBlue, System.Drawing.Color.LightSteelBlue, ChartSeriesType.Bar)	

See Also

• Building RadCharts

• Populate RadChart at Design-Time

• Creating RadChart Declaratively

• Creating RadChart Programmatically - more complex example