Hi there,
I'm reviewing chart components for a financial application and so far have looked at Telerik, amCharts, Visifire and now Infragistics.
I like the look of the xamTrader reference application however I still have some questions re: features of the xamChart component. Any answers would be greatfully received!
Thank you,
Andrew
With regard to xamCharts
1. Can I display custom markers on the charts, for instance, buy/sell indicators?
2. Can xamChart display candlestick, OHLC (Open High Low Close), Bar (column), Line charts and support multiple chart types on one chart instance? (e.g. Candlestick overlaid with a line chart, or bar/histogram with lines)
3. Is there any way I could implement Point & Figure financial charts? Other components have suggested I override the template on a bubble chart to get a PnF chart (X's and O's represent price movements)
4. Is there any way I could implement custom drawing on the chart (programmatically). Financial charts require complex annotations that scale and pan with the chart as it is moved around.
For instance, take a look at http://www.freestockcharts.com/ and try some of the drawing options on the left of the chart you'll see what I mean. For instance, Fib Retracement you click and drag, trendlines, text etc...
With regard to complex object types, pretty much all of the objects you would want to draw over a chart could be defined by one or two anchor points to the underlying data series. For instance, news markers require 1 anchor, but trendlines, fibonnacci retracements, gann angles etc.. could all be recreated with 2 anchor points.
If the underlying framework could support binding a base object via one/two anchors to the underlying price / time series then the user could override this base object and draw whatever they liked there. Pretty much anyway.
With regard to the WPF/SL controls in general
5. Is xamChart compatible with silverlight and WPF? (I am developing to deploy on both platforms and would like to share a common code base if possible and better yet, without buying two licences per developer). Are there any common codebase examples if so?
6. The same question as the above for the ribbon and dock manager components
7. Do the Infragistics controls support the Microsoft composite application library and are there any examples of implementing an application using this library
andyb1979 said: 1. Can I display custom markers on the charts, for instance, buy/sell indicators?
you can customize DataPoint.Marker property of any point in the chart to achieve a different marker rendering.
<igChart:DataPoint.Marker> <igChart:Marker Type="Rectangle" Fill="Green" Stroke="Lime" /></igChart:DataPoint.Marker>
andyb1979 said: 2. Can xamChart display candlestick, OHLC (Open High Low Close), Bar (column), Line charts and support multiple chart types on one chart instance? (e.g. Candlestick overlaid with a line chart, or bar/histogram with lines)
Candlestick: http://help.infragistics.com/Help/NetAdvantage/WPF/2009.2/CLR3.5/html/xamChart_Candlestick_Chart.html
OLHC: http://help.infragistics.com/Help/NetAdvantage/WPF/2009.2/CLR3.5/html/xamChart_Stock_Chart.html
These should be able to coexist with line and column charts in the same instance, i'll see if I can whip you up a sample, you can check the chart restrictions on each page to see which types those charts won't coexist with in the same plotting area.
andyb1979 said: 3. Is there any way I could implement Point & Figure financial charts? Other components have suggested I override the template on a bubble chart to get a PnF chart (X's and O's represent price movements)
I'll look into this, the recommendation may be the same.
andyb1979 said: 4. Is there any way I could implement custom drawing on the chart (programmatically). Financial charts require complex annotations that scale and pan with the chart as it is moved around.
The current WPF chart does not support these kind of annotations. Although you may be able to do your own with an ink canvas. You can see the silverlight xamWebDataChart CTP for some of our direction in this area: http://labs.infragistics.com/silverlightdv/ctp/ (hold down the control key to draw on it).
andyb1979 said: 5. Is xamChart compatible with silverlight and WPF? (I am developing to deploy on both platforms and would like to share a common code base if possible and better yet, without buying two licences per developer). Are there any common codebase examples if so?
Unfortunately WPF assemblies can't be hosted in Silverlight applications, because Silverlight's CLR and BCL are subsets of the full .NET framework. xamChart is the WPF Infragistics chart control. For Silverlight there is the xamWebChart which is a very similar control to the xamChart with differences mostly relating to the differences in features available between WPF and Silverlight (No 3D in silverlight, etc). The documentation for both is available on the website if you would like to compare and contrast.
Trying to use a common codebase between Silverlight and WPF is tricky business, but things will get a lot easier with Silverlight 4.0/.NET 4.0 on this front as, if you are careful, you can compile Silverlight 4.0 assemblies that are binary compatible with WPF. It is possible, but not necessarily simple, to host a Silverlight control like XamWebChart in the web browser control in WPF such that you can run the Silverlight version of the control in both WPF and silverlight. However, communications between the WPF app and the chart would be compilcated by having to work through the browser interoperation layer. Can I ask actually, from a curiosity standpoint, why you would want both a WPF and Silverlight version of an application if the codebase is the same? Do you plan in small differences in the WPF version that take advantage of some of its advanced features?
andyb1979 said: 6. The same question as the above for the ribbon and dock manager components
Not really my area of expertise, you might want to pose this one on the appropriate forum. I imagine the answer may be much the same, though.
andyb1979 said: 7. Do the Infragistics controls support the Microsoft composite application library and are there any examples of implementing an application using this library
I'll have to get back to you on this one.
-Graham
Info on infragistics and CAL:
http://forums.infragistics.com/blogs/josh_smith/archive/2009/01/12/infragistics-wpf-controls-in-a-composite-application.aspx
By the way, if you want me to elaborate on any of the points above, just let me know.
Hi,
Can you give more details around using an ink canvas to draw lines like support/resistance lines, fibonacci and trend lines? Also, I am looking to optimize the rendering performance of the charts with more than 3000 data points. Some tips will help.
Regards
Vaibhav