Creating a JavaScript chart theme
As mentioned earlier, Actuate BIRT Designer uses Highcharts, a third-party charting library, to render HTML5 charts. To create a JavaScript chart theme, you set the Highcharts chart options to values that provide the visual attributes you desire. Every option has a default value. You define attributes only to change default settings, or to add items that do not appear by default.
Listing 15-1 shows the JavaScript code for the predefined chart theme, Chart Grid. The charts in Figure 15-2 and Figure 15-3 use this theme. As the code shows, options are set using a JavaScript object notation structure. Keys and values are connected by colons, separated by commas, and grouped by curly brackets.
For a complete reference of the options and their descriptions, see the Highcharts documentation at the following location:
http://www.highcharts.com/ref/
The Highcharts reference contains two sections, The options object and Methods and properties. Look at The options object for information about the options you can set in a chart theme.
Listing 15-1  
colors: ['#058DC7', '#50B432', '#ED561B', '#DDDF00', '#24CBE5', '#64E572', '#FF9655', '#FFF263', '#6AF9C4'],
chart: {
backgroundColor: {
linearGradient: [0, 0, 500, 500],
stops: [
[0, 'rgb(255, 255, 255)'],
[1, 'rgb(240, 240, 255)']
]
},
 
borderWidth: 2,
plotBackgroundColor: 'rgba(255, 255, 255, .9)',
plotShadow: true,
plotBorderWidth: 1
},
title: {
style: {
color: '#000',
font: 'bold 16px "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, sans-serif'
}
},
subtitle: {
style: {
color: '#666666',
font: 'bold 12px "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, sans-serif'
}
},
xAxis: {
gridLineWidth: 1,
lineColor: '#000',
tickColor: '#000',
labels: {
style: {
color: '#000',
font: '11px Trebuchet MS, Verdana, sans-serif'
}
},
title: {
style: {
color: '#333',
fontWeight: 'bold',
fontSize: '12px',
fontFamily: 'Trebuchet MS, Verdana, sans-serif'
 
}
}
},
yAxis: {
gridLineWidth: 1,
minorGridLineWidth: 1,
minorTickInterval: 'auto',
lineColor: '#000',
lineWidth: 1,
tickWidth: 1,
tickColor: '#000',
labels: {
style: {
color: '#000',
font: '11px Trebuchet MS, Verdana, sans-serif'
}
},
title: {
style: {
color: '#333',
fontWeight: 'bold',
fontSize: '12px',
fontFamily: 'Trebuchet MS, Verdana, sans-serif'
}
}
},
legend: {
itemStyle: {
font: '9pt Trebuchet MS, Verdana, sans-serif',
color: 'black'
 
},
itemHoverStyle: {
color: '#039'
},
itemHiddenStyle: {
color: 'gray'
}
},
labels: {
style: {
color: '#99b'
}
}

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