Third-generation charting component for mobile and smart devices.
As opposed to other vendors which provide first-generations of their .NET Compact Framework products, Software FX has been building and offering charting components for Microsoft’s mobile environments for over a decade. With Pocket Chart FX for .NET you can expect a component with the right feature set, portability and memory footprint for your mobile applications.
A familiar Chart FX API.
Perhaps one of the main advantages Chart FX provides is a consistent API and Object model throughout the platforms that are supported throughout its family of products (.NET, COM and Java). This means, developers can leverage their knowledge in a particular Chart FX product to move or port an application to a completely different platform.
Is the entire Chart FX functionality available in the .NET Compact Framework version?
Although many of the features of Chart FX for .NET are supported by the Pocket version, due to constraints of mobile devices, the .NET Compact Framework is a subset of the .NET Framework. This means many features of Windows, GDI, and the .NET Framework that you have come to know and love in your Windows Forms or Web Forms applications were unable to be implemented. Some of features that have a special impact on some important aspects in a chart control have been simplified. For example, setting the pen width is not available in the .NET Compact Framework. This means you will not be able to change the width for any of the borders or lines in a chart. In general, this means that you will see a variety of differences between the full-featured Chart FX for .NET and the Pocket Chart FX for .NET. Our directive, for performance and footprint reasons, was to make Pocket Chart FX for .NET as efficient and feature-rich as the platform would allow. For a list of the feature differences between the Pocket and full versions of Chart FX for .NET, please visit the comparison page.
Because of the limitations imposed by the .NET Compact Framework and the mobile devices themselves, Pocket Chart FX for .NET does not display toolbars or dialogs that end users can interact with to further customize charts without additional development efforts. This helps preserve the limited screen real estate in mobile environments and avoid UI conflicts with your application. In any case, implementing interaction functionality is a simple property setting in your UI. For example, if you want to change the gallery type, you can simply add a menu item to your application and set a chart property when the user selects the menu item. The Publisher, Software FX, provide a quick start sample that provides exactly this functionality among other things.
Note: Although Pocket Chart FX for .NET does not provide built-in UI, you can process mouse related events to implement drill-down and process other mouse related interactions.
Easy to Code & Integrate
Software FX strive to provide their customers with the easiest, yet most advanced ways of integrating charting into their application with minimal development. That is why Chart FX for .NET features a new wizard that will assist in the generation of the charts, and show the potential of this tool. To facilitate the process even more, Chart FX for .NET also provides Interactive Tutorial and Samples, an interactive programmer’s guide that will get you accustomed with Chart FX for .NET through hundreds of samples and comprehensive explanations.
Enhanced User Interface
Chart FX for .NET provides end-user chart customization through intuitive menus, dialogs and toolbars. Through its enhanced interface, users can export the charts to a variety of formats, as well as store changes to a particular chart for future sessions, maximizing the usability and readability of your application’s charts at the end-user level.
Internet Capabilities
Developers can easily maximize their web applications potentials with Chart FX for .NET ’ s many internet enabled features. Among these features, the ability to bit-stream directly to a browser, a Web Forms enabled component, auto browser detection and response, server component, and drill-down capabilities.
Visual Attributes
With over 20 different chart types, customizable legends, ready-to-use color palettes, multiple and customizable axes, annotation objects, per-marker attributes, gridlines, background images and border objects, Chart FX for .NET allows you to create some of the most visually appealing charts in just minutes. In addition, Chart FX for .NET provides advanced visual features, including anti-aliasing, smoothness, alpha-transparencies, gradients, and many more.
Chart Population
Chart FX for .NET supports a vast variety of data population methods, including, passing data directly through the API, Dataset Binding (ADO.NET) , XML Files, Collections, Arrays, Arrays of Arrays, Text Files.
Comprehensive Support
As always, Software FX is committed to providing the best possible support for all our products. With an extensive knowledge base, online articles, personalized support, newsgroups and more, you will find everything you need to know to quickly integrate Chart FX into your application.
Data Analysis
Chart FX for .NET places an impressive array of data analysis tools at your displosal. Chart FX for .NET provides tools such as OLAP, highlighting, statisitical analysis, axis sections, conditional attributes and more.
Development
Pocket Chart FX for .NET design-time components are licensed on a per-device basis. The license agreement permits you to use one copy of these components on a single computer. The software is in "use" on a computer when it is loaded into temporary memory (i.e. RAM) or installed into permanent memory (e.g. hard disk, or other storage device) of that computer. If you need to install these design-time components in more than one computer, you need to obtain an additonal Pocket Chart FX for .NET license for each additional computer.
Deployment
Pocket Chart FX for .NET is licensed per deployment seat (device). Pocket Chart FX for .NET and Chart FX for .NET include 25 deployment licenses. Additional 25 seat deployment licenses are available for purchase. OEM agreements are available for volume purchases.
.NET Framework
.NET Development IDE such as:
- Visual Studio .NET
- Borland C# Builder
Visual Studio .NET 2003 if using Pocket Chart FX for .NET
and want to create applications for smart devices