Cartesian Time Axes

The time axis is used to display times and dates. When building its ticks, it will automatically calculate the most comfortable unit base on the size of the scale.

Here are some example how to create category axes:

// creates a time axis with default scale id "x" and default kind "x" 
CartesianTimeAxis axis1 = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);

// creates a time axis with scale id "my-axis" and default kind "x" 
CartesianTimeAxis axis2 = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart, "my-axis");

// creates a time axis with scale id "my-axis" and default kind "x" 
CartesianTimeAxis axis3 = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart, ScaleId.create("my-axis"));

// creates a time axis with default scale id "x" and custom kind "x" 
CartesianTimeAxis axis4 = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart, AxisKind.X);

// creates a time axis with scale id "my-axis" and custom kind "x" 
CartesianTimeAxis axis5 = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart, "my-axis", AxisKind.X;

// creates a time axis with scale id "my-axis" and custom kind "x" 
ScaleId myAxis = ScaleId.create("my-axis");
CartesianTimeAxis axis6 = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart, myAxis, AxisKind.X);

// adds axes to chart configuration
chart.getOptions().setAxes(axis1, ...);

Datasets

To use time axis, you must use DataPoint in order to set the date object in the axis.

The x axis data points can be specified via the setX method when using the time axis.

Here is the example:

// creates a dataset
BarDataset dataset = chart.newDataset();
// creates a datapoint      
DataPoint dp1 = new DataPoint();
dp1.setY(number_value1);
dp1.setX(new Date(time1));
// creates a datapoint
DataPoint dp2 = new DataPoint();
dp2.setY(number_value1);
dp2.setX(new Date(time2));
// sets the datapoints to the dataset
dataset.setDataPoints(dp1, dp2);
// sets the datasets to the chart
chart.getData().setDatasets(dataset);

Options

The following options are provided by the time axis.

The time axes are providing the capability to set and get the options, by the set and get methods, as following:

// creates a time axis 
CartesianTimeAxis axis = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);
// sets and gets the reverse value
axis.setReverse(true);

boolean reverse = axis.isReverse();

The following are the attributes that you can set:

Name	Type	Scriptable	Description
alignToPixels	boolean	Yes	Align pixel values to device pixels.
backgroundColor	String - IsColor	Yes	The background color of scale area.
bounds	Bounds	Yes	Determines the scale bounds on axis.
display	boolean - Display	Yes	If Display.TRUE, the axis is shown.
max	Date	Yes	User defined maximum date for the scale, overrides maximum value from data.
min	Date	Yes	User defined minimum date for the scale, overrides minimum value from data
offset	boolean	Yes	If true, extra space is added to the both edges and the axis is scaled to fit in the chart area.
offsetAfterAutoskip	boolean	-	If true, bar chart offsets are computed with auto skipped ticks.
position	AxisPosition	Yes	Position of the axis.
reverse	boolean	Yes	Reverses order of tick labels.
singleStacked	boolean	-	If you might want to stack positive and negative values together.
stack	String	Yes	Sets the stack group. Axes at the same position with same stack are stacked.
stacked	boolean	Yes	If the axis are stacked.
stackWeight	double	Yes	Sets the weight of the scale in stack group. Used to determine the amount of allocated space for the scale within the group.
weight	double	Yes	The weight used to sort the axis. Higher weights are further away from the chart area.

Scriptable

Scriptable options at scale level accept a callback which is called for each of the underlying data values. See more details in Configuring charts section.

All scriptable options callbacks will get a ScaleContext instance.

// creates a category axis 
CartesianTimeAxis axis = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);
// sets the option by a callback 
axis.setBackgroundColor(new ColorCallback<ScaleContext>(){

   @Override
   public IsColor invoke(ScaleContext context){
      // logic
      return color;
   }
});

The following options can be set by a callback:

Name	Callback	Returned types
alignToPixels	AlignToPixelsCallback	boolean
backgroundColor	ColorCallback<ScaleContext>	String - IsColor
bounds	BoundsCallback	Bounds
display	DisplayCallback	boolean - Display
max	MinMaxCallback<Object>	Date - int - double
min	MinMaxCallback<Object>	Date - int - double
offset	ScaleOffsetCallback	boolean
position	ScalePositionCallback	AxisPosition
reverse	ReverseCallback	boolean
stack	StackCallback	String
stacked	StackedCallback	boolean
stackWeight	ScaleWeightCallback	double
weight	ScaleWeightCallback	double

Time

The time axis provides a Time object to configure how times must be managed on axis. It provides the set and get methods as following:

// creates a time axis 
CartesianTimeAxis axis = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);
// sets and gets the unit value
axis.getTime().setUnit(TimeUnit.DAY);
// sets and gets the tooltip format value
axis.getTime().setTooltipFormat(TimeUnit.day.getDefaultFormat());

TimeUnit unit = axis.getTime().getUnit();

The following are the attributes that you can set:

Name	Type	Description
isoWeekday	IsoWeekDay	The first day of the week.
minUnit	TimeUnit	The minimum display format to be used for a time unit.
parser	String	null
round	TimeUnit	If defined, dates will be rounded to the start of this unit.
tooltipFormat	String	Format string to use for the tooltip.
unit	TimeUnit	If defined, will force the unit to be a certain type.

The following time measurements are supported and are mapped in the TimeUnit enumeration, to force a certain unit:

• millisecond
• second
• minute
• hour
• day
• week
• month
• quarter
• year

The Time object is also providing another object to set the display formats, based on TimeUnit.

The DisplayFormats can be used as following:

// creates a time axis 
CartesianTimeAxis axis = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);
// sets and gets the unit value
axis.getTime().setUnit(TimeUnit.DAY);
// sets display format for the unit
axis.getTime().getDisplayFormats().setDisplayFormat(TimeUnit.DAY, "MMM D h:mm a");

This method can override the defaults. To see the defaults, see the LUXON date adapter.

Adapters

The adapters options are used to configure the adapter for LUXON date library.

The adapters options configuration is nested in the scale configuration as following:

// creates a time axis 
CartesianTimeAxis axis = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);
// sets and gets the locale to date adapter options
axis.getAdapters().getDate().setLocale(CLocale.US);

CLocale locale = axis.getAdapters().getDate().getLocale();

The following are the attributes that you can set:

Name	Type	Description
locale	CLocale	Using locale specifying the language to use generating or interpreting strings.
zone	TimeZone	Implementation recognizes the time zone names of the IANA time zone database.
outputCalendar	Calendar	The calendar type to use.
numberingSystem	NumberingSystem	The numbering system to use.

For more details, have a look how to configure a Luxon date adapters.

Ticks

The time axis provides the following options for configuring tick marks.

// creates a time axis 
CartesianTimeAxis axis = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);
// sets and gets the color to ticks
axis.getTicks().setColor(HtmlColor.RED);

IsColor color = axis.gteTicks().getColor();

The following are the attributes that you can set:

Name	Type	Scriptable	Description
align	TickAlign	-	The tick alignment along the axis.
autoSkip	boolean	-	If true, automatically calculates how many labels that can be shown and hides labels accordingly. Labels will be rotated up to maxRotation before skipping any. Turn autoSkip off to show all labels no matter what.
autoSkipPadding	int	-	The padding between the ticks on the horizontal axis when autoSkip is enabled.
backdropColor	String - IsColor	Yes	Color of label backdrops.
backdropPadding	Padding	-	The padding of tick backdrop. See padding documentation for more details.
color	String - IsColor	Yes	Color of ticks. See default colors.
crossAlign	CrossAlign	CrossAlign.NEAR	The tick alignment perpendicular to the axis.
display	boolean	-	If true, the tick marks are shown.
font	IsFont	Yes	Font of ticks. See Font.
includeBounds	boolean	-	If true, the defined min and max values should be presented as ticks even if they are not "nice".
labelOffset	int	-	Distance in pixels to offset the label from the centre point of the tick (in the x-direction for the x-axis, and the y-direction for the y-axis). Note: This can cause labels at the edges to be cropped by the edge of the canvas.
maxRotation	int	-	The maximum rotation for tick labels when rotating to condense labels. Note: Rotation doesn't occur until necessary and only applicable to horizontal scales.
minRotation	int	-	The minimum rotation for tick labels.
mirror	boolean	-	The flips tick labels around axis, displaying the labels inside the chart instead of outside. Note: Only applicable to vertical scales.
padding	int	-	The padding between the tick label and the axis.
sampleSize	int	-	The number of ticks to examine when deciding how many labels will fit. Setting a smaller value will be faster, but may be less accurate when there is large variability in label length.
showLabelBackdrop	boolean	Yes	If true, draw a background behind the tick labels
source	TickSource	-	How ticks are generated on axis time.
stepSize	int	Yes	The number of units between grid lines.
textStrokeColor	String - IsColor	Yes	The color of the stroke around the text.
textStrokeWidth	int	Yes	Stroke width around the text.
z	int	-	z-index of tick layer. Useful when ticks are drawn on chart area. Values less than or equals to 0 are drawn under data sets, greater than 0 on top.

The further customization of ticks, a callback is provided.

Ticks scriptable options

Scriptable options at ticks level accept a callback which is called for each of the underlying data values. See more details in Configuring charts section.

All scriptable options callbacks will get a ScaleContext instance.

// creates the axis for chart
CartesianTimeAxis axis = new CartesianTimeAxis(chart);
// sets the option by a callback 
axis.getTicks().setColor(new ColorCallback<ScaleContext>(){

   @Override
   public IsColor invoke(ScaleContext context){
      // logic
      return color;
   }
});

The following options can be set by a callback:

Name	Callback	Returned types
backdropColor	ColorCallback<ScaleContext>	String - IsColor
color	ColorCallback<ScaleContext>	String - IsColor
font	FontCallback<ScaleContext>	FontItem
showLabelBackdrop	ShowLabelBackdropCallback	boolean
stepSize	StepSizeCallback	int
textStrokeColor	ColorCallback<ScaleContext>	String - IsColor
textStrokeWidth	WidthCallback<ScaleContext>	int

Callback

It is also common to want to change the tick marks to include information about the data type.

To apply a custom callback, you can set a TimeTickCallback instance to the axis options, as following:

axis.getTicks().setCallback(new TimeTickCallback(){

    private final DateTimeFormat dateTimeFormat = new DateTimeFormat(CLocale.GERMANY);

   /**
     * Changes the tick marks to include information about the data type.
     * 
     * @param axis axis instance where this callback as been defined
     * @param value value of tick as date
     * @param label label of tick, passed by CHART.JS formatting the date by the selected {@link TimeUnit} and its display
     *            format.
     * @param index index of tick
     * @param values list of all tick values
     * @return the tick to apply or if the callback returns null the associated grid line will be hidden.
     */
    public String onCallback(Axis axis, Date value, String label, int index, List<TimeTickItem> values){
        return dateTimeFormat.format(value);
    }
         
});

The callback is providing a specific list of items (TimeTickItem) which maps Chart.JS object with the values (as date) and major booleans.

See INTL date time format documentation if you want to use a date formatter, provided out-of-the-box.

The callback can return a string (for single line) or a list of strings (for multiple lines).