Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Selecting Right Charting Component for Windows Phone or Desktop or Web Application

How do I choose a charting component? Do you think selecting the Right Chart Control is really hard! Here I will help you to make it more easier.

Well before you select a charting component you should be very careful about the following things.

  1. First make sure that the chart looks smart and beautiful (For Enterprise grade application).
  2. Smooth and smart animation to impress your boss and clients.
  3. What data you are going to visualize in the Chart? It’s always better to select a charting component which supports all chart types in one binary/component.
  4. Few commonly used chart types are - Pie, Column, Bar, Line, Spline, Area, Stacked Charts and combination charts etc. Checkout the list here.
  5. Do not overlook styling and Theme options.
  6. Make sure its faster.
  7. It must support few basic features required to create an enterprise application or dashboard.
         •   Must be easier to use (This will reduce your development time).
         •   Must support switching one chart type to another just setting one property.
         •   Events on any elements present in chart (Required for creating drilldown charts)
         •   Supply data at one shot
         •   Real-time update
         •   Partial update (Real-time without updating the whole chart)
         •   Good documentation.


If you consider the above points while purchasing a charting component hope you will be able to select right chart control for your applicaton.

According to my experience I can say Visifire is the best charting component which meets all the above requirements. Currently Visifire works with Silverlight, Windows Phone, WPF, XBAP, win-form application, any web-application, JQuery, SharePoint and so many..

Few Important  links