Step Line Chart
- 3 minutes to read
Short Description
The Step Line Chart is represented by the StepLineSeriesView object, which belongs to Point and Line Series Views. This view is useful when you need to show to what extent values have changed for different points in the same series. Also, you can set the StepLineSeriesView.InvertedStep property to true to specify whether these steps are shown as inverted or not.
A Step Line chart is shown in the image below. Note that this chart type is based upon the XYDiagram, so it can be rotated to show lines either vertically or horizontally.
Chart Type Characteristics
The table below lists the main characteristics of this chart type.
| Feature | Value |
|---|---|
| Series View type | StepLineSeriesView |
| Diagram type | 2D-XYDiagram |
| Number of arguments per series point | 1 |
| Number of values per series point | 1 |
Note
For information on which chart types can be combined with the Step Line Chart, refer to the Series Views Compatibility document.
Example
The following example demonstrates how to create a ChartControl with a series of the StepLineSeriesView type, and add this chart to a form at runtime. Before proceeding with this example, first create a Windows Forms Application in Visual Studio, and include all necessary assemblies to the References list of your project.
Then, add the following code to the Form.Load event handler.
using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using DevExpress.XtraCharts;
// ...
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
// Create a new chart.
ChartControl stepLineChart = new ChartControl();
// Create a step line series.
Series series1 = new Series("Series 1", ViewType.StepLine);
// Add points to it.
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("A", 12));
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("B", 4));
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("C", 17));
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("D", 7));
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("E", 12));
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("F", 4));
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("G", 17));
series1.Points.Add(new SeriesPoint("H", 7));
// Add the series to the chart.
stepLineChart.Series.Add(series1);
// Customize the view-type-specific properties of the series.
StepLineSeriesView myView = (StepLineSeriesView)series1.View;
myView.LineMarkerOptions.Kind = MarkerKind.Star;
myView.LineMarkerOptions.StarPointCount = 5;
myView.LineStyle.DashStyle = DashStyle.Dash;
// Access the diagram's options.
((XYDiagram)stepLineChart.Diagram).EnableAxisXZooming = true;
// Hide the legend (if necessary).
stepLineChart.Legend.Visible = false;
// Add a title to the chart (if necessary).
stepLineChart.Titles.Add(new ChartTitle());
stepLineChart.Titles[0].Text = "A Step Line Chart";
// Add the chart to the form.
stepLineChart.Dock = DockStyle.Fill;
this.Controls.Add(stepLineChart);
}
Tip
A complete sample project is available in the DevExpress Code Examples database at http://www.devexpress.com/example=E1210.