In an earlier tip, we discussed the new bookmark capabilities in version 3.3 which allow you to capture visualization and document properties. One practical example of how you can apply these new features is to create a self-drilling visualization.
In this example we start by showing the total orders from different product categories in a Horizontal Bar Chart (3.3 includes Horizontal Bar Charts)
We can now capture a bookmark which will store the ‘Page Layout and Visualizations’ only using the ‘Add Bookmark Special’ command.
This will capture how this Horizontal Bar Chart is setup and configured.
Then, we should update the same visualization to use a new marking and also to limit the data shown to use the same marking from the original visualization configuration. In this example, the visualization initially was setup to use ‘Marking’ , identified by green. Then we updated it to use ‘Marking (2)’, identified by red and to limit data shown to the ‘Marking’ green marking.
We then update our visualization to reflect the drill down by updating the Category Axis to show not only the Product Category, but also the Product column.
NOTE: Since Spotfire supports Horizontal Bar Charts from version 3.3, the X and Y Axis on Bar Charts and Combination Charts have been replaced with Category Axis and Value Axis.
Once the visualization is configured propertly, we then add another bookmark to capture this visualizations properties (using the ‘Add Bookmark Special’ command).
Now we can add a Text Area and include the two bookmarks to allow the user to toggle the visualization between the top level (Product Categories only) and the sub level (the product(s) which are marked). You can see from the image below that the ‘Truck and Buses’ visualization is marked when all product categories are displayed.
When second bookmark is executed, the visualization will update and drill into the specific marked products.
By clicking on the first action link associated with the first bookmark, the visualization will revert back to showing all the Product Categories only.
