TAChart UserGuide

[kapibara]

You know, this component is so complete and massive that the biggest job now is the documentation.

There is a good start of a Reference Guide at http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/TAChart_documentation

But thats not a user guide. There should be an organized TAChart UserGuide how to solve all kinds of tasks. It can link back to the Reference Guide.

Links to existing and future tutorials could be placed inside this guide, making it easy to see a practical example of whats described in the user guide.

And the TAChart Reference Guide should list and explain all functions, procedures and properties that are valuable for using the component suite. There are now many important methods that are not explained anywhere.

It would be easy to find all relevant information about TAChart if everything started from these two choices:

TAChart User Guide
TAChart Reference Guide

The most important is to start, so I tried today to add "TAChart UserGuide" to this page:

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Category:TAChart

Maybe it should be placed differently? How to get it started?

[jwdietrich]

Feel free to start writing. Every contribution is welcome.

[kapibara]

Yes, but go here:

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Category:TAChart

Press Edit and this is the only thing that comes up:

Code: [Select]

[[Category:Charting]]
[[Category:Lazarus]]
[[Category:SciTech]]
[[Category:Packages]]

When I wrote on a tutorial before it wasnt like that. Maybe this page is different?

[jwdietrich]

When I wrote on a tutorial before it wasnt like that. Maybe this page is different?

Yes, it is different. It is a category, not an article.

[kapibara]

Also, I'm interested in wp's opinion about my proposition since he's probably contibuted a large part of the existing documentation and tutorials.

[jwdietrich]

To come back to the category vs. article issue:

You shouldn't add content to a category page (apart from an optional very short introduction to the objective of the category). Please write rather an article and add [[Category:TAChart]] at the bottom, then the article is automatically added to the category.

See http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Help:Editing for reference.

[wp]

In essence, I think a User Guide would be great progress. But the other hand, I fear that this would be a monumental task for somebody which would never be finished in practice.

Looking at the existing documentation of TAChart, I'd say there is already a lot, much more than for other Lazarus libraries. From the perspective of a beginner I'd be missing an introduction which describes the TAChart framework: what is a chart? what is a series? what are these damn' tools for? I think many new users would be happy to read such an introduction at the beginning of the http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/TAChart_documentation.

The other thing I am missing are a few more step-by-step tutorials: how to create a bar series? a stacked bar series? a stacked bar series with bars adding to 100%? how to print a chart? how to save a chart to file? how to use the drawing backends? how to create date/time axis labels?, etc.

Finally, only a few users know that the TAChart library contains a wealth of example projects. I think that almost every aspect of the component is covered in them. But since nobody knows they are not very useful. Sometimes I am thinking I (or somebody else...) should write some kind of catalogue which shows a screen shot of every demo and gives a brief description and maybe a short explanation of code tricks.

Coming to the other point of how to write an article in the wiki: the most confusing point is how to start. That's the way I do it: open any existing article and type the title of the article that you want to write into the search field. Then the wiki tells you that this article does not exist and asks you if you want to create this article. Confirm that and you can begin writing.

[jwdietrich]

Finally, only a few users know that the TAChart library contains a wealth of example projects. I think that almost every aspect of the component is covered in them. But since nobody knows they are not very useful. Sometimes I am thinking I (or somebody else...) should write some kind of catalogue which shows a screen shot of every demo and gives a brief description and maybe a short explanation of code tricks.

In my opinion this is a very good idea. An example how to implement such kind of catalog could be the R plot and graph gallery, a page with examples of plots and charts that have been created with R, the GNU implementation of the statistical language S. Clicking on the plots reveals the R source code that created it.

[wp]

That's impressive. But can this be done in the wiki language?

[jwdietrich]

That's impressive. But can this be done in the wiki language?

I think so. I will make a try.

[kapibara]

Thanks for the info, I'm now trying out some ideas for a user guide. More or less along the lines wp suggested. I'm making a Reference too. At the moment its more of a creative mess than a guide. But in a few days I'd appreciate some input from you guys.

To come back to the category vs. article issue:

You shouldn't add content to a category page (apart from an optional very short introduction to the objective of the category). Please write rather an article and add [[Category:TAChart]] at the bottom, then the article is automatically added to the category.

See http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Help:Editing for reference.

[kapibara]

Hi guys. As you know, I wanted to create an organized userguide framework by linking to existing and future articles, tutorials etc.

It started pretty well, but to reach a level so its better than what we already have will take some more time. The existing documentation is quite large.

Right now I have to work on the database part of my app, so the guide has to wait until somewhat later this year when its charting time again.

[jwdietrich]

Yes, I understand.

I announced to make a catalog like the R plot and graph gallery, but since you began to make one on your own, I abstained from doing so. Currently I am in lack of free time due to other urgent projects, therefore I would be glad if you were able to make some progress.

[kapibara]

@jwdietrich. I misunderstood and thought you would try to implement some feature of the R webpage in the wiki. Sorry about that!

Yes, I understand.

I announced to make a catalog like the R plot and graph gallery, but since you began to make one on your own, I abstained from doing so. Currently I am in lack of free time due to other urgent projects, therefore I would be glad if you were able to make some progress.

[kapibara]

I have tinkered some more and the result is a navigation framework for the existing documentation. Have a look and see what you think.

http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/TAChart_User_Guide

It uses collapsing lists that can have several levels. New sections and items can easily be added. All of the existing information is not linked in yet and some new subpages should be created to tie all information together.

The framework links a lot to the existing TAChart documentation page, which is quite large.  When it grows too big it could be split into separate pages which are linked in.

I imagine three sections of the guide:

* Introduction, with "getting started"
* Theoretical, overview with "concepts" for chart and series.
* Resources, with in depth tutorials and other material.

This is also an attempt to make it easy for new users to get an overview of TAChart. In the past, some considered TAChart difficult. I think they simply didnt find the right information. I guess there are some important concepts you should know, but a few well written and well placed subpages should take care of that.