Cartesian Category Axes

The category axis will draw the labels from one of the label arrays included in the chart data.

Here are some example how to create category axes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Options

The cartesian category axis allows to define a number of properties, used to display the data.

// creates a category axis 
CartesianCategoryAxis axis = new CartesianCategoryAxis(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	String	Yes	User defined maximum string for the scale, overrides maximum value from data.
min	String	Yes	User defined minimum string for the scale, overrides minimum value from data.
labels	Labels	-	The labels to display.
offset	boolean	Yes	If true, extra space is added to the both edges and the axis is scaled to fit in the chart area.
position	AxisPosition - AxisPositionItem	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 
CartesianCategoryAxis axis = new CartesianCategoryAxis(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<String>	String
min	MinMaxCallback<String>	String
offset	ScaleOffsetCallback	boolean
position	ScalePositionCallback	AxisPosition - AxisPositionItem
reverse	ReverseCallback	boolean
stack	StackCallback	String
stacked	StackedCallback	boolean
stackWeight	ScaleWeightCallback	double
weight	ScaleWeightCallback	double

Ticks

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

// creates a category axis 
CartesianCategoryAxis axis = new CartesianCategoryAxis(chart);
// sets and gets the max value
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.
crossAlign	CrossAlign	-	The tick alignment perpendicular to the axis.
display	boolean	-	If true, the tick marks are shown.
font	IsFont	Yes	Font of ticks.
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
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.

For both the min and max properties, the value must be in the labels array.

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 a category axis 
CartesianCategoryAxis axis = new CartesianCategoryAxis(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
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 CategoryTickCallback instance to the axis options, as following:

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

   /**
    * 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
    * @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, String value, int index, List<String> values){
      // add a label
      return value + myLabel;
   }
         
});

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