Background setting(s): sets the background or fill color, the border color, and the border width
- Fill and border colors
- Click the colored square, prompting the ColorPicker tool to appear
- Choose a color
- Border width
- Type in a smaller number for a thinner border and a larger one for a thicker border
Enable user draw?: allows users to draw on the chart or graph
- Click True to allow users to make annotations on the chart
- Note that these annotations will not be saved with the chart itself
Data Source URL
This field provides one way to upload your Google Docs spreadsheet, containing the data that will be used to create your visualization, into SHIVA. To use this option, you do not need to allow SHIVA read-only access to your Google Drive. For information on using it, see the Copy a Spreadsheet into SHIVA step-by-step guide
Font size: set the font size of the text in your chart
- Its default setting is "automatic" which is font size 12
- Note that if you have more than three columns, the text becomes difficult to read after font size 30
Height: controls how tall your want your chart/graph to appear
- Type in a number
- For charts, set the height to a value between 1 and 400
- Note that some charts can have a height greater than 400
Graph Only
Font Color: sets the color of the font in your graph
- Click the colored square, prompting the ColorPicker to appear
- Choose a color
Link colors (applies only to graphs): sets colors for the chords in the graph
- Click the colored square, prompting the ColorPicker tool to appear
- Click the tabs at the top of the color wheel to choose more than one color
Link line width (applies only to graphs): sets the width of the links
- Type in a larger number to create thicker lines or type in a smaller number to create smaller lines
Node shape (applies only to graphs): formats the shape of the nodes
- Choose a shape from the drop-down menu
Chart Only
Chart area setting(s)
- Click in the text box to configure the placement and size of the chart area
- Note that the chart area does not include either the axes or the legends
- Type in numerical values for the left, top, height, and width of the chart
- Two formats that are supported: a number, or a number followed by %
- For example: left=20,top=0,width=50%,height=75%
Chart colors
- Click the colored square, prompting the ColorPicker tool to appear
- Choose colors for the areas on your chart
- Click a tab at the top of the ColorPicker tool to choose a second color
- Choose a second color either by clicking a color in the color wheel, or by clicking Schemes, which will display color schemes based on the first color you chose, and choosing a color from the display
- Choose more colors
Data Filter: either screen some sections of data from view, or reorder data in order to focus attention on a certain section of it. Because the filters reorder data based on how it is labelled, you need to have designated header rows with labels for each column in your Google Docs spreadsheet
- Filter Date: filters the data in your spreadsheet to show certain sections of your data
- In the IF drop-down menu, choose any one of the spreadsheet headers that you will be filtering information from
- Note that the filter picks up this information from the header row of your Google Spreadsheet. This filter will only work if you choose a header for a row from the drop-down menu that contains numerical data; the data filter will not work for text data
- In the IS drop-down menu, choose one of the filtering options
- Type a number into the textbox next to the IS menu
For example, if you want to filter out numbers less than 100 from your data set, choose "< -" from the IS menu, then type "100" into the text box. The chart will not display any data involving numbers less than 100.
2. Reorder data: reorder categories according to a certain subset of data. Be aware that changing any items in the "SHOW" drop-down menu will result in an error message.
- Click the Data Filter text box
- Click the Order By drop-down menu
- Choose the data subset you wish to order your chart by
Font name: set the font you want your chart to display
- It's best to use standard font names to ensure that the font will appear on any computer
Horizontal axis settings (applies only to charts): formats the x-axis
- Baseline:
- Type in the number along the x-axis where you want to set the baseline, and thus where you want the bars to begin (for example, in you type in "50," the baseline will move to 50; the bars showing numbers lower than 50 will point to the left, while bars 50 and higher will point to the right)
- Baseline Color:
- Click the colored square and the ColorPicker tool will appear, allowing you to choose a color for the baseline
- Direction:
- Type in -1 to reverse the order of the values along the x-axis (for example, change the order from smallest to largest, to largest to smallest)
- Axis Label Format:
- Type in a label to appear in front of the numbers on the x-axis (for example, if you type in "Rabbits," the numbers on the x-axis would read "Rabbits5," "Rabbits10" and so on); type in a 0 if you don't want to have axis labels
- Log Scale?:
- Type in "true" in order to make the horizontal axis a logarithmic scale (all values must be positive)
- Text Position:
- Change the position of the horizontal axis text relative to the chart area by typing in "out," "in," or "none"
- Axis Title:
- Type in a title for the x-axis, which will appear below it
- Max Value:
- Filter data by typing in the maximum number you want to be shown on the chart (for example, if you type in "50," bars showing values of 51 and up will not appear)
- Min Value:
- Filter data by typing in the minimum number you want to appear on the chart (for example, if you type in "10," bars showing values of 9 and lower will not appear)
- Slanted Text:
- Type in "true" to display text on the x-axis text at an angle, which helps fit more text along the axis; type in "false" in order to display the text upright (the default is to slant text if it doesn't all fit when drawn upright)
Legend position (applies only to charts): controls where you want the legend to appear in respect to the chart
- choose an option from the drop-down menu:
- "bottom:" the legend displays below the chart
- "in:" the legend displays inside of the chart
- "none:" the legend disappears and is no longer a part of the chart
- "right:" the legend displays to the right of the chart
- "top:" the legend displays above the chart
Legend text setting(s): customize how the legend will appear
- Click inside the textbox to display the "Set legendTextStyle" pop-up window
- "Font:" type in a font style
- "Size:" type in a number
- "Color:" click the color square, prompting the ColorPicker to appear
- choose a color scheme for the legend
Line width: controls the width of the lines depicting your data
- set the width of the lines in your chart from anywhere between 1 and above
Opacity of area chart: controls the opacity of the area below the chart lines
- enter a value between 0 and 1, where 0=transparent and 1=opaque
Series setting(s): allows you to overlay several chart styles on top of each other, with each column of data being depicted by its own style
- Type in instructions in these formats of your choosing:
- Set a column to be displayed in a different chart style:
- Decide what data set to change: type in 0 for the first column, 1 for the second column, etc.
- Decide what style of chart in which to display the data set: "line," "area," "bars," or "steppedarea"
- For example, you could type in: 0,type=area, 1,type=bars, 2,type=steppedArea
- If you want to change the line width or point size of a particular chart style:
- Decide on the line width: type in "lineWidth=xxx," where xxx is the width (i.e., "4")
- Decide the point size: type in "pointSize=xxx," where xxx is the size (i.e., "12")
- Type in the line width or point size settings right after specifying the chart type for a certain data set, for example, you could type into the text box: 0,type=area, lineWidth=4, 1,type=bars, 2,type=steppedArea, pointSize=1
Size of points: determines how the points in your chart will appear
- Type in a higher number to display larger points
- Type in a lower number to display smaller points
- Note that a value of "1" is the minimum
Stacked chart?: controls how you want the data to appear in the chart
- "True" shows the data as stacked on top of each other
- "False" shows the data as individual sets of data
Title above chart (applies only to charts)
- Enter a title for your chart; this field is mandatory
- Note that the title won't show up in the chart itself
Tool tip setting(s): styles how the text in the tool tip will appear
- Font
- Type in a font name; use standard fonts, such as Arial, Courier, or Times New Roman, to ensure that it will look the same across all browsers
- Font size
- Type in a number as small as 1
- Color
- Click the colored square, prompting the ColorPicker tool to appear
- Choose a color
Vertical axis setting(s): formats the y-axis
- The settings are the same for the horizontal axis. Go to Horizontal axis settings
Width of chart
- set the width of the chart to a value between 1 and 400
- Note that some charts can have a width greater than 400