Animation

The animation settings in this tab operate at a local level, on the selected chart. If you wish to set up animation at a global level such that all animation sequences operate identically, go to the appropriate Chart type in the Layout and Styles toolbox (go to Animation Style for more information).

Note: To create and view animated charts, both designers and viewers must have the Macromedia Flash player from Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer)installed.

For cool web-based presentations, Reportal has an animation function. Using this you can have your charts fade in, grow from the edge, fly in from the top, or use one of a number of other themes. You can give the animation a start delay, a total duration, and you can have it repeat over a set period. To set up this function, go to the Animation tab, check the Animation Enabled box and set the desired options .

Note: Animation will only function on web-enabled reports. If the report is exported to Excel, PowerPoint, Word or another application, the animated charts will be exported as pictures and the animation will cease to function.

Figure 1 - The Animation tab properties

• Animation Start Time – the time delay in seconds from when the chart is opened until the animation commences.
• Animation Duration – the time taken in seconds for the animation to complete.
• Repeat Animation – check to repeat the animation.
• Repeat Delay – the time delay between the end of one animation and the start of the next.
• Animation Theme – click the down-arrow to open a drop-down list of the available themes, and select one from the list. The options are:

• None – no animation.
• Growing Together – uses a combination of growing and fading animation types. Fading is used for markers, data point labels, axis labels, titles and legend items. All other elements use growing animation.
• Fading – uses only the fading effect for all chart elements. Data points are drawn one by one.
• Growing and fading – similar to the GrowingTogether theme but differs in that all chart elements may be animated at the same time. This theme also uses a repeat flag for data points which causes a flashing effect.
• Growing one by one – uses one-by-one drawing for all elements. This theme is a combination of growing and fading animation types.
• Moving from top – uses Moving Animation for data points. All data points move and grow from point (50, 0) in relative coordinates.

Note: An Animation Theme must be selected. If None is shown, then the chart will not be animated.