On numeric scales it is often useful to display the values in currency or percentage format. The following code snippets show how to do that:

1. Display as currency
   

   C#	Copy Code
   NCartesianChart chart = (NCartesianChart)nChartControl1.Charts[0]; NAxis primaryY = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY); NStandardScaleConfigurator scaleConfigurator = (NStandardScaleConfigurator)primaryY.ScaleConfigurator; scaleConfigurator.LabelValueFormatter = new NNumericValueFormatter(NumericValueFormat.Currency);

   Visual Basic	Copy Code
   Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0) Dim primaryY As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY) Dim scaleConfigurator As NStandardScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryY.ScaleConfigurator, NStandardScaleConfigurator) scaleConfigurator.LabelValueFormatter = New NNumericValueFormatter(NumericValueFormat.Currency)

2. Display as percentage.
   

   C#	Copy Code
   scaleConfigurator.ValueFormatter = new NNumericValueFormatter(NumericValueFormat.Percentage);

   Visual Basic	Copy Code
   scaleConfigurator.ValueFormatter = New NNumericValueFormatter(NumericValueFormat.Percentage)

To apply date time value formatting to the scale labels you need to create an instance of the NDateTimeValueFormatter. The following code will apply short 24 hour time formatting to the automatically generated labels:

NChart chart = nChartControl1.Charts[0];
NAxis primaryX = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryX);
NDateTimeScaleConfigurator dateTimeScale = (NDateTimeScaleConfigurator)primaryX.ScaleConfigurator;
dateTimeScale.LabelValueFormatter = new NDateTimeValueFormatter(DateTimeValueFormat.ShortTime24Hour);
dateTimeScale.EnableUnitSensitiveFormatting = false;

Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0)
Dim primaryX As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryX)
Dim dateTimeScale As NDateTimeScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryX.ScaleConfigurator, NDateTimeScaleConfigurator)
dateTimeScale.LabelValueFormatter = New NDateTimeValueFormatter(DateTimeValueFormat.ShortTime24Hour)
dateTimeScale.EnableUnitSensitiveFormatting = False

Note that in the above code we turned off the unit sensitive formatting. Unit sensitive formatting allows you to specify a date time formatting, which is dependent on the date/time unit selected by the scale for the major ticks.

For example consider that you display date/time data which is gathered from a real time device at 5 second intervals. In this case the scale will choose a smaller date time unit depending on the number of data points - for example second or minute. Most likely you'll not need date or year information when you display data for one or two hours span. On the other hand if you display data for monthly or yearly sales the scale will choose a bigger date time unit (week, month, quarter, half year or year) and chances are you'll not need time information.

Unit sensitive formatting allows you to specify a date time formatting string depending on the date time unit selected by the scale for the major ticks.

Unit sensitive formatting is also very useful when you use DateTime scales with zooming and scrolling. In this case when you zoom in the scale will select smaller units (that show time information), respectively when you zoom out, the scale will select bigger units (with date information).

Date time units are implemented as singleton objects, which are accessible from the NDateTimeUnit base abstract class. The following table lists the date time units supported by the scale:

At any point you may enable / disable the date time units that the scale can use for the major ticks. This is achieved by modifying the AutoDateTimeUnits array:

NChart chart = nChartControl1.Charts[0];
NAxis primaryX = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryX);
NDateTimeScaleConfigurator dateTimeScale = (NDateTimeScaleConfigurator)primaryX.ScaleConfigurator;

dateTimeScale.AutoDateTimeUnits = new NDateTimeUnit[] { NDateTimeUnit.Day, NDateTimeUnit.Month };

Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0)
Dim primaryX As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryX)
Dim dateTimeScale As NDateTimeScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryX.ScaleConfigurator, NDateTimeScaleConfigurator)

dateTimeScale.AutoDateTimeUnits = New NDateTimeUnit() {NDateTimeUnit.Day, NDateTimeUnit.Month}

This code will limit the scale to choose only from a day and month date time units.

Furthermore you can change the format string associated with a particular date time unit:

NChart chart = nChartControl1.Charts[0];
NAxis primaryX = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryX);
NDateTimeScaleConfigurator dateTimeScale = (NDateTimeScaleConfigurator)primaryX.ScaleConfigurator;
dateTimeScale.AutoDateTimeUnits = new NDateTimeUnit[] { NDateTimeUnit.Day, NDateTimeUnit.Month };
dateTimeScale.DateTimeUnitFormatterPairs.DayFormatter = new NDateTimeValueFormatter(DateTimeValueFormat.ShortDateShortTime24Hour);
dateTimeScale.DateTimeUnitFormatterPairs.MonthFormatter = new NDateTimeValueFormatter(DateTimeValueFormat.Date);

Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0)
Dim primaryX As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryX)
Dim dateTimeScale As NDateTimeScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryX.ScaleConfigurator, NDateTimeScaleConfigurator)
dateTimeScale.AutoDateTimeUnits = New NDateTimeUnit() {NDateTimeUnit.Day, NDateTimeUnit.Month}
dateTimeScale.DateTimeUnitFormatterPairs.DayFormatter = New NDateTimeValueFormatter(DateTimeValueFormat.ShortDateShortTime24Hour)
dateTimeScale.DateTimeUnitFormatterPairs.MonthFormatter = New NDateTimeValueFormatter(DateTimeValueFormat.Date)

Now when the scale decides to generate major ticks for days (at say each day, each fifth day etc.) it will use a formatting string with short date and short time information. Otherwise if it chooses to generate ticks on a per month basis it will display just date information.

You can modify various aspects of the label generation and layout. The following sections describe how to fine tune automatically generated labels.

By default the scale will create a label for each major tick on the scale. In some cases however you may want labels to be less dense than ticks - in such cases you can change NumberOfTicksPerLabel property allowing you to create scales where labels skip major ticks. The following code snippet will configure the axis to display one label for each two ticks:

NChart chart = nChartControl1.Charts[0];
NAxis primaryY = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY);
NStandardScaleConfigurator scale = (NStandardScaleConfigurator)primaryY.ScaleConfigurator;
scale.NumberOfTicksPerLabel = 2;

Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0)
Dim primaryY As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY)
Dim scale As NStandardScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryY.ScaleConfigurator, NStandardScaleConfigurator)
scale.NumberOfTicksPerLabel = 2

Often when you have densely populated scales the labels overlap. By default the scale is configured to resolve label overlapping by staggering and auto scaling texts. However this can often be unpractical because the chart will bounce when you have overlapping and when not. To avoid this you may consider to force the axis to always generate staggered labels regardless of whether the labels overlap or not. This is done with the help of the LabelGenerationMode property:

NChart chart = nChartControl1.Charts[0];
NAxis primaryY = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY);
NStandardScaleConfigurator scale = (NStandardScaleConfigurator)primaryY.ScaleConfigurator;
scale.LabelGenerationMode = LabelGenerationMode.Stagger2;

Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0)
Dim primaryY As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY)
Dim scale As NStandardScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryY.ScaleConfigurator, NStandardScaleConfigurator)
scale.LabelGenerationMode = LabelGenerationMode.Stagger2

Note that when you use staggered label generation you should disable the staggering layout mode because this can lead to having a scale with four levels if the labels overlap:

NChart chart = nChartControl1.Charts[0];
NAxis primaryY = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY);
NStandardScaleConfigurator scale = (NStandardScaleConfigurator)primaryY.ScaleConfigurator;
scale.LabelFitModes = new LabelFitMode[] { LabelFitMode.AutoScale };

Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0)
Dim primaryY As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY)
Dim scale As NStandardScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryY.ScaleConfigurator, NStandardScaleConfigurator)
scale.LabelFitModes = New LabelFitMode() {LabelFitMode.AutoScale}

When you have labels that overlap you can instruct the scale to try to resolve the overlapping by using one or more label overlapping resolve strategies.

You assign the allowed layout fit strategies to the scale by changing the values of the LabelFitModes property of the NStandardScaleConfigurator. The order in which you specify the strategies is important as layout fit modes that appear first in the collection will be tested before the rest. If a layout strategy succeeds the rest of the layout fit modes in the collection are ignored. By default the labels are configured to use staggering and then auto scaling.

The following code snippet allows 90 degrees rotation to the PrimaryX axis:

NChart chart = nChartControl1.Charts[0];
NAxis primaryY = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY);
NStandardScaleConfigurator scale = (NStandardScaleConfigurator)primaryY.ScaleConfigurator;
scale.LabelFitModes = new LabelFitMode[] { LabelFitMode.Rotate90, LabelFitMode.AutoScale };

Dim chart As NCartesianChart = NChartControl1.Charts(0)
Dim primaryY As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY)
Dim scale As NStandardScaleConfigurator = CType(primaryY.ScaleConfigurator, NStandardScaleConfigurator)
scale.LabelFitModes = New LabelFitMode() {LabelFitMode.Rotate90, LabelFitMode.AutoScale}