Chart.js

Chart.js is an open-source JavaScript library on Github that allows you to draw different types of charts by using the HTML5 canvas element. Since it uses Canvas, you have to include a polyfill to support older browsers.

Charts.js Installation Guide

Why to use Chart.js?

Whenever we need to add any type of chart or graph in our project we can add those by the use of Chart.js.

• Its installation process is very easy and it helps in monitoring every kind of graph and bar.
• It has many features like we can change font size according to our visual needs.
• We can colors to make a difference between different charts.
• It can change the layout according to ourselves.
• We can add animations also. tooltip can be added in bar graphs for the presentation of any data.
• Last, but not least, It is open-source and it has a very big community that helps to maintain its version and bugs.

Features

• It provides a set of frequently used chart types, bar graphs, plugins, and many customization options.
• We can use more than one chart type in the same canvas and customize it.
• You can also use a community-maintained chart type if you do not want to customize it.
• We can customize charts by blending chart types, font sizes, layouts, colors, tooltips, etc.

Integration

ChartJS already has built-in Typescript typings. It can be used with all frameworks of JavaScript for e.g. React, Vue, Svelte, and Angular. Chart.js also provides links to CDN and jsDelivr so that it can be easily integrated into any type of project. It also provides an npm package so that it can be directly installed into your system and can be integrated with your system.

Below is the visual Representation of Charts in ChartJS.

Chart.js General

It is rendered on the screen via the canvas element of the developer. we can create any type of chart by the use of Chart.js having any type of customization and visuals. We can add content to that but that content is not accessible to the user through the screen. so the canvas is accessible in all the web browsers but not its content. that's why Chart.js provides many other attributes to do so. This is only one example out of many. more There are many other features provided by Chart.js, that we are going to discuss below.

• Accessibility: It ensures the accessibility rendered on user-provided canvas elements. Users can add accessibility features like ARIA attributes or fallback content within the canvas elements.
• Colors: It allows color customization in the charts. For the geometric elements like lines and bars, we can set background and border colors, and for the text elements such as labels and titles, we can set the font colors.
• Data Structures: It is the backbone of Chart.js or any other charting library. With the help of data structures, we can determine how data is organized, manipulated, and finally displayed in the charts.
• Fonts: It is the global font settings that can be applied in the visual chart, allowing the styling of the text elements. Using this setting, we can customize the text elements.
• Options: It provides us with options to change or customize the chart level, dataset level, dataset animation options, dataset element level options, scale options, plugin options, etc.
• Padding: It can be used to provide a border around the chart or to ensure that none of its components are placed too close to the canvas’ edges.
• Performance: Chart.js charts are speedily rendered thanks to their utilization of canvas elements. This choice of rendering contributes to swift performance, allowing for the creation of dynamic and visually appealing charts.

Chart.js Configuration

ChartJS Configuration is used to change the behaviour of chart by providing properties like fonts, styling, colors, the legend, etc. It has many properties those are describes below.

• Configuration: It is used to change the behavior of charts by providing different types of properties.
• Animations Configuration: It is the set of options to control the dynamic visualization effects in the Chart.js chart. This configuration contains animation settings, transitions, easing functions, etc.
• Canvas Background Configuration: It consists of setting options to control the visual appearance of the chart area, helping to change background properties like color.
• Data Decimation Configuration: It is a feature developed for line charts, allowing us to reduce the data points automatically. By doing this, the chart’s performance and visuals are optimized in a proper, clear form.
• Device Pixel Ratio Configuration: It allows the users to override the default pixel ratio of the window, which provides control over the rendering resolution of the chart canvas.
• Elements Configuration: It provides options to configure four types of elements: arcs, lines, points, and bars.
• Interactions Configuration: It provides the mode of interactions, meaning it handles the events while interacting with charts.
• Layout Configuration: It provides configuration options to customize the layout globally.
• Legend Configuration: It provides configuration for displaying data about the datasets that are appearing on the chart.
• Locale Configuration: It facilitates the locale option to set the number of ticks on scales in accordance with language-specific number convention formatting.
• Responsive Charts Configuration: It helps in making the charts responsive according to the screen sizes.
• Subtitle Configuration: It provides the option to add a second title below the main title.
• Title Configuration: It manages the title of the chart.
• Tooltip Configuration: It provides the configuration for adding tooltips on the chart with many types of customizable properties.

Chart.js Chart Types

ChartJS offers a diverse set of chart types, each designed to convey specific types of data effectively. It also helps to see the computed data at a glance, in order to analyze & make the required decision accordingly. With this, it enhances overall readability, & the user experience.

• Area Chart: It is the type of chart that is mainly used to represent data points over a continuous axis by filling the area or portion within the data line and the axis, making it a colored portion.
• Bar Chart: It is a graph that uses rectangular bars to show data. The length of each bar corresponds to the value it represents, making it easy to compare several groupings quickly.
• Bubble Chart: It is used to display three-dimensional data or 3D data.
• Doughnut and Pie Charts: It is a circular statistical-shaped chart used to display data in rings, where each ring represents data from the dataset.
• Line Chart: It is a visual representation of data points connected by straight lines, depicting trends or patterns in a dataset over time or across categories.
• Mixed Chart Types:It is a single graphical representation in which multiple chart types are combined, such as line, bar, radar, and doughnut in a single chart.
• Polar Area Chart: It is a type of chart that represents data in a circular shape format, which is quite similar to a pie chart.
• Radar Chart: It is used to present multivariate data in a spider-web-like format, allowing for the analysis and comparison of more than one quantitative variable in parallel.
• Scatter Chart: It is a data visualization concept that allows users to represent and analyze the relationship between two numerical variables.

Chart.js Axes

It is an ntegral part of a chart. that determine how to map the data to a pixel va;ue on the chart. It basically deal with axes of all type of charts and provides default scaling. Also it is open to customize the scales of each type of charts having different axes. Many other type of axes are described below.

• Axes: It is an integral part of Chart.js and it is used to determine the pixel value of the chart. There can be one or more X-axis and Y-axis. It provides the common and trick configuration for axes.
• Cartesian Axes: It can be of many types and each type specifies the need of the value according to its name. For example, the category axis provides a label category to label the name of each point on the chart or graph.
• Radial Axes: These are used mainly for the polar area, radar, and bubble charts. It has a circular axis that runs around the boundaries of the chart, which shows the different kinds of data points at various distances from the center of the chart.
• Labeling Axes: It is mainly used to make the charts more readable and informative. It provides various options to customize the labels of both X and Y axes, as well as other types of axes, such as radial axes.
• Styling Axes: It helps to style the axes so that they can look appealing rather than plain. It allows us to customize the look of the grid lines, ticks, and borders of the chart.

Chart.js Developers

Chart.js Developer feature allow us to extend the feature of Chart.js. It extends the feature of customizing the chart by providing extra methods, properties and configurations. Types of developer features are described below in brief.

• Developers: It extends the feature of Chart.js by providing extra properties and configurations.
• API Developer: It is a collection of methods, properties, and different events that we can use to create and manage the charts quite effectively.
• New Axes Developer: It is used to extend and create custom axes by using the Chart.Scale class. Using this feature, we can develop specific scales other than the standard ones provided by Chart.js.
• New Charts Developer: It provides control over the Dataset Interface, Extending Existing Chart Types, TypeScript typings, etc.
• Contributing Developers: Chart.js is open to contributions, meaning if you want to add any more features to it, you can freely contribute through their GitHub repository.
• Plugins Developers: It provides an efficient way to customize or change the default behavior of the chart by providing extra plugins.
• Publishing an Extension Developers: It allows you to create extensions for Chart.js.
• TypeDoc Developers: It provides a list and documentation of Enumerations, Classes, Interfaces, etc.
• Updating Charts Developers: It provides options for updating the data used in charts.