On this post, you will learn how to create a basic chart on Windows Form Application with VB.NET. I use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 as IDE.
Requirement
Step-by-step
- Install the requirement software as stated on the Requirement section.
- Open Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. Create a new VB.NET’s Windows Application. Type the name of the project as “SampleBasicChart“.
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- On Toolbox window, drag a Chart control from the Data category to the Windows Form.
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Note: If you does not see the Chart control in the Toolbox, you need to perform these steps below: - Right-click on the Toolbox window and select Choose Items.
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- On Choose Toolbox Items, click Browse.
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- Browse to the location where you have installed Microsoft Chart Controls. The default location is
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Chart Controls\Assemblies and select System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.dll. Then, click Open.
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- You see Chart control has been added to .NET Framework Components. Verify that its check box is checked and click OK.
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- On Chart Properties, you see an empty chart with a default series, “Series1“. Next, I’m going to add another Series. On Chart Properties, click the Series collection. Then, click the ellipsis button.
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- On Series Collection Editor, click Add. You will see “Series2” has been added to the collection.
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- Now you have two series on a chart. But there is not any data on the chart so I will add some example data point on each series. Select Series1 and click the ellipsis button on Points collection.
- On Series Collection Editor, select “Series1” in the Members area and click the Points collection property. Then, click the ellipsis button.
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- On DataPoint Collection Editor, click Add and assign a value “10” to the YValues property in the newly created DataPoint object.
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- Repeat step 8 to add two more DataPoint object with values “20” and “30” repectively. Then, click OK to close the DataPoint Collection Editor window.
Note: These values are example values, you may use any value as you want.
- Repeat step 7-9 again on “Series2” with YValues as you want. Then, click OK to close the Series Collection Editor windows.
- Run the project. You see the chart with two series as you created.
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Sample chart
The sample chart that I use on this post has a series “Series1” which has 3 data points “10,20,30“.
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Change chart type
There are many chart types that you can select for Chart control. On this example, I show some of those chart types which are Point, Line, Bar, Pie.
- On Chart Properties, click the Series collection. Then, click the ellipsis button.
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- On Series Collection Editor, select “Series1” in the Members area and change the Chart type property to Point.
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- The Point chart type.
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- The Line chart type.
- The Bar chart type.
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- The Pie chart type.
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Change Color style of chart
There are many color palettes that you can choose for Chart control. This section shows how to change color of Chart control.
- On Chart Properties, click on Palette property. You see a drop down button. Click on it and you can choose a color palette for your chart.
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- The example below is Bright color palette.
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Insert title to chart
This section shows how to insert title to Chart control.
- On Chart Properties, click the Title collection. Then, click the ellipsis button.
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- On Title Collection Editor, click Add and set (Text) to “My Sample Chart” in the newly created Title object.
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- Run the project. You will see a title on top of the chart.
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- You can customize title’s text style, title position, title color on title properties.
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3D chart
This section shows how to use three-dimensional (3D) chart areas in Chart control.
- On Chart Properties, click the ChartAreas collection. Then, click the ellipsis button.
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- On ChartArea Collection Editor, select “ChartArea1“. Expand Area3DStyle and change (Enable3D) to True.
Note: You can customize your 3D Style on this Area3DStyle properties .
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- You see the chart is now 3D.
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Step-by-step
- Create a new Windows Application project on VB.NET and type name as “SampleDataBindChart“.
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- On Form1, open code window and import these libraries. The first two libraries are used for SQL. The last one is used for Chart.
Imports System.Data
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting
- Type code below on Form1_Load().
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34 | Dim strConn As String = "Data Source=BKKSQL001\INSTANCE01;" & _
"Initial Catalog=Northwind;Integrated Security=True"
Dim conn As New SqlConnection(strConn)
Dim sqlProducts As String = "SELECT Top 8 ProductName, UnitsInStock FROM Products"
Dim da As New SqlDataAdapter(sqlProducts, conn)
Dim ds As New DataSet()
da.Fill(ds, "Products")
Dim ChartArea1 As ChartArea = New ChartArea()
Dim Legend1 As Legend = New Legend()
Dim Series1 As Series = New Series()
Dim Chart1 = New Chart()
Me.Controls.Add(Chart1)
ChartArea1.Name = "ChartArea1"
Chart1.ChartAreas.Add(ChartArea1)
Legend1.Name = "Legend1"
Chart1.Legends.Add(Legend1)
Chart1.Location = New System.Drawing.Point(13, 13)
Chart1.Name = "Chart1"
Series1.ChartArea = "ChartArea1"
Series1.Legend = "Legend1"
Series1.Name = "Series1"
Chart1.Series.Add(Series1)
Chart1.Size = New System.Drawing.Size(800, 400)
Chart1.TabIndex = 0
Chart1.Text = "Chart1"
Chart1.Series("Series1").XValueMember = "ProductName"
Chart1.Series("Series1").YValueMembers = "UnitsInStock"
Chart1.DataSource = ds.Tables("Products") |
Code Explanation:
- Line 1-2: Define a connection string to connect to a database on SQL Server.
- Data Source is a SQL Server name.
- Initial Catalog is a database name.
- Set Integrated Security=True to use the current user as identity to access the SQL Server database.
- Line 4: Create a SqlConnection’s object.
- Line 6: Define SQL query string.
- Line 7-9: Execute the query and populate result to DataSet’s object.
- Line 11-14: Create Chart’s objects.
- Line 15: Add Chart’s object to the form.
- Line 17-29: Set Chart’s properties (ChartArea, Legend and Series).
- Line 31-32: Bind column “ProductName” to X-axis and column “UnitsInStock” to Y-axis on the “Series1” Chart.
- Line 34: Set Chart’s data source to the DataTable in the DataSet’s object.
- Run the project. You see a chart displaying “Product Name” on X-axis and “Unit in Stock” on Y-axis which data is gathered from Northwind database on SQL Server.
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