Bug 113506 - EDITING: allow all X axis scale options for Line charts too
Summary: EDITING: allow all X axis scale options for Line charts too
Status: UNCONFIRMED
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Chart (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
3.4.0 release
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords: needsDevAdvice
Depends on:
Blocks: Chart-Enhancements
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2017-10-29 09:39 UTC by Dr. Matthias Weisser
Modified: 2023-10-05 13:21 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
data file for testing purpose (586.00 KB, application/vnd.ms-excel)
2017-10-29 09:39 UTC, Dr. Matthias Weisser
Details
picture showing editing fields for Y axis in LO (41.28 KB, image/png)
2017-10-29 09:41 UTC, Dr. Matthias Weisser
Details
picture showing editing fields for X axis in LO (34.88 KB, image/png)
2017-10-29 09:42 UTC, Dr. Matthias Weisser
Details
picture showing editing fields for X axis in MS Excel 2000 (23.88 KB, image/png)
2017-10-29 09:44 UTC, Dr. Matthias Weisser
Details
problem to see with LO 6.1.3.2 (17.42 KB, image/jpeg)
2018-11-29 13:35 UTC, Dr. Matthias Weisser
Details
shows that x axes numbers are not clearly shown (21.53 KB, image/png)
2018-11-29 13:55 UTC, Dr. Matthias Weisser
Details
Modified Graph With amendable X Axis (327.55 KB, application/octet-stream)
2020-12-22 07:26 UTC, Peter S Anderson
Details
Line chart with x integer values (50.76 KB, image/png)
2021-10-17 00:47 UTC, Ross Johnson
Details

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Description Dr. Matthias Weisser 2017-10-29 09:39:06 UTC
Created attachment 137350 [details]
data file for testing purpose

I did a diagram from data. This is shown correctly. When I want to change scaling this works correctly on Y axis but unfortunately not on X axis.

For Y axis I am getting a full dialog in the "Skalierung" area with Minimum, Maximum, Hauptintervall and so on. See picture.

For Y axis I do get a much reduced dialog in the "Skalierung" area without Minimum, Maximum, Hauptintervall and so on. See picture.

Using the old "MS Excel 2000" program I do not get this problem. Using that I can easily change also X axis as I wish.

I really hope this can be fixed. Thank you for listening !
Comment 1 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2017-10-29 09:41:12 UTC
Created attachment 137351 [details]
picture showing editing fields for Y axis in LO
Comment 2 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2017-10-29 09:42:29 UTC
Created attachment 137352 [details]
picture showing editing fields for X axis in LO

here is the difference to see in comparison to Y axis.
Comment 3 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2017-10-29 09:44:19 UTC
Created attachment 137353 [details]
picture showing editing fields for X axis in MS Excel 2000

here is seen that using the old MS Excel 2000 the X axis can be properly edited which unfortunately did not work using LO.
Comment 4 Regina Henschel 2017-10-29 11:46:15 UTC
You have to use an XY-chart, not a line-chart.
BTW: You should use a secondary y-axis for the second series, because it has a different unit.
Comment 5 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2017-10-29 16:26:07 UTC
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #4)
> You have to use an XY-chart, not a line-chart.
> BTW: You should use a secondary y-axis for the second series, because it has
> a different unit.

Thank you for this hint. I tried different possibilities creating those charts. This was one that worked for me. Unfortunately it does not seem to be possible editing the time axis as it was and still is possible using MS Excel 2000.

I do not see this as solved.
Comment 6 Regina Henschel 2017-10-29 16:54:35 UTC
A category axis does not allow to set a grid interval, only for dates it is possible. In that case you have to set type "date" for the x-axis of the line chart. But I do not see that your x-axis has dates. Your x-axis has simple automatic integer numbers. Why does using an XY-chart do not solve your problem?
Comment 7 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2017-10-29 21:06:02 UTC
(In reply to Regina Henschel from comment #6)
> A category axis does not allow to set a grid interval, only for dates it is
> possible. In that case you have to set type "date" for the x-axis of the
> line chart. But I do not see that your x-axis has dates. Your x-axis has
> simple automatic integer numbers. Why does using an XY-chart do not solve
> your problem?

unfortunately I am not a real specialist for using Calc as designers of this might have thought of. I tried out what worked for me and ended up doing so as above. 

As can be seen I was able getting a picture showing the data.

Also I am able clicking on the axes to change them. This works for me as it did in MS Excel also. Unfortunately it does not work in LO. This bothers me. I simply do not understand why this is not possible there. 

I really would like the behaviour as it was using MS Excel. This was easy and understandable. I do not understand LO here. May be I am too stupid. Sorry for that. May be also many others are as stupid as me. I think this could be the case. 

Therefore I hope there will be some help here.
Comment 8 Xisco Faulí 2018-11-26 19:11:06 UTC
Dear Dr. Matthias Weisser,
Could you please try to reproduce it with the latest version of LibreOffice
from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/ ?
I have set the bug's status to 'NEEDINFO'. Please change it back to
'UNCONFIRMED' if the bug is still present in the latest version.
Comment 9 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2018-11-28 18:48:52 UTC
(In reply to Xisco Faulí from comment #8)
> Could you please try to reproduce it with the latest version of LibreOffice
> from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/

thank you very much Xisco !

Which version should I install for testing?
at the moment I am not using version 6 because of trouble.
should I test the latest version 5?
Comment 10 Xisco Faulí 2018-11-28 22:09:10 UTC
(In reply to Dr. Matthias Weisser from comment #9)
> (In reply to Xisco Faulí from comment #8)
> > Could you please try to reproduce it with the latest version of LibreOffice
> > from https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-fresh/
> 
> thank you very much Xisco !
> 
> Which version should I install for testing?
> at the moment I am not using version 6 because of trouble.
> should I test the latest version 5?

you should test with 6.1.3.2.
Which trouble is it you're talking about?
Comment 11 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2018-11-29 13:35:19 UTC
Created attachment 147142 [details]
problem to see with LO 6.1.3.2

here can be seen that with LO6.1.3.2 there is still no possibility there to change x-axis scaling. In comparison to y-axis the difference is easy to see.
Comment 12 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2018-11-29 13:51:15 UTC
(In reply to Xisco Faulí from comment #8)
> Could you please try to reproduce it with the latest version of LibreOffice

I did. Unfortunately the problem still seems to be there. 

when opening the data file for testing purpose with old Excel there is no problem to change the axis.

also the numbers of the x-axes are nearly impossible to read. Please see the attachment "number_problem.png" for this.

unfortunately with LO in comparison the performance in scrolling is poor. It feels sluggish. Also I cannot easily see a zoom possibility. May be this should become another report. Its not good handling this here.
Comment 13 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2018-11-29 13:55:07 UTC
Created attachment 147143 [details]
shows that x axes numbers are not clearly shown

the picture shows that opening the data file on my system the y numbers are shown ok but not the x axes values as can be seen.
Comment 14 Xisco Faulí 2019-05-30 11:13:16 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 15 Dr. Matthias Weisser 2019-06-02 09:36:11 UTC Comment hidden (obsolete)
Comment 16 Buovjaga 2019-08-25 11:56:29 UTC
No more testing requests should be done, until we get more input from developers (or charting experts). Based on Regina's comments, this does not seem to be a bug.

I tried creating an X-Y chart with the data, but I am not a charting expert and don't have infinite time at the moment, so I failed to replicate Matthias's chart with X-Y.
Comment 17 Peter S Anderson 2020-12-22 07:26:12 UTC
Created attachment 168398 [details]
Modified Graph With amendable X Axis

Hi Everyone,
I have loaded the Excel spreadsheet in 6.4.7.2, deleted the graph and recreated it again and saved it as an ODC file. The X axis is scalable as can be seen from my amendments. I suspect that there was something about how the graph was created. Hopefully this will help the user.
Regards...... Peter.
Comment 18 Peter S Anderson 2020-12-22 07:39:26 UTC
Given my ability to easily create a graph where the X Axis is amendable as per Dr. Weiss' requirements, I suspect that the problem is with the initial loading of the Excel spreadsheet into Calc. Happy to show Dr Weiss what I did if it will help him.
Regards..... Peter.
Comment 19 Ross Johnson 2021-10-09 10:03:31 UTC
Still present in:

Version: 7.2.1.2 (x64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 87b77fad49947c1441b67c559c339af8f3517e22
CPU threads: 12; OS: Windows 6.1 Service Pack 1 Build 7601; UI render: Skia/Raster; VCL: win
Locale: en-AU (en_AU); UI: en-US
Calc: threaded

I had a look at both Dr Weisser's original and Peter's recreation.

I think the question remains: why can't the Line Chart type X-Axis tick marks and labels be set in the same way as for the XY (Scatter) chart type?

If I recreate the chart as a Line Chart I get X-axis labels: 4, 134, 264, ..., 4554, ie, every 130 starting at 4, and I cannot see how many major tick marks there are between each label nor which tick mark the label corresponds to. If I switch to the X-Y Chart type I get useful labels and tick marks automatically. This is an issue even without the manual overrides being available.

This data should be representable as a simple line chart. When the Line Chart "categories" are integers, the same algorithm should be used with the same manual overrides should be available as for the X-Y Scatter chart.

The X-Y Scatter chart is a work-around but it is not the type of chart I would choose first up to graph these values because they are not scattered (they are regular periodic temperature and humidity readings).
Comment 20 Ross Johnson 2021-10-17 00:47:29 UTC
Created attachment 175787 [details]
Line chart with x integer values

The attachment, following Regina's [comment 6], shows the result choosing the "Date" category but then choosing "Day" resolution and maximum major tick interval of 100.

This is not intended as a suggested workaround, just an exercise to see how close it is possible to get to a satisfying representation using the Line Chart style. It is still not a general solution but IMO proves there is no fundamental reason to prevent Line Charts representing any regular sequence of values, especially integers, preferably a new category altogether.

Line Charts and Area Charts share the same underlying limitations and, while an X-Y Scatter Chart may offer a workaround for simple line chart X-axis formatting, it doesn't provide one for Area charts, which have the same limitations.

An Area chart (2D and 3D) with regular interval values is a common chart presentation style that is not available in LO.
Comment 21 Stéphane Guillou (stragu) 2023-10-05 13:21:14 UTC
I went through the comments, and ultimately I understand this as an enhancement request to add the same axis controls to the X axis as are available in the type XY (scatter).

I agree with Regina that such a chart should be made using the XY (scatter) type in the first place, which is used when plotting two continuous variables (whereas the "line" type is usually for continuous data on the Y axis, and categorical data on the X axis).

However, it is an understandable expectation as scaling just like a continuous variable is allowed if the X axis takes dates since LO 3.4, and as Ross pointed out, it would also help for Area charts.

But it could also be taken the other way around: adding "area" as an option to the XY (scatter) type.

(Noting that Peter's attachment 168398 [details] in comment 17 contains an XY (scatter) chart, what Regina suggests using.)