Build 4.0.0.8 of xlsgen adds support for creating Excel 2016 box & whisker charts. As the name implies, these are Excel 2016 charts in that only Excel 2016 will render those charts, no older Excel version will do. xlsgen reads, creates and writes such charts.


Box & whisker charts in xlsgen

Box and whisker charts display the dispersion of values in one or more series. Boxes represent main quartiles, lines represent the dispersion of values outside the main quartiles (the larger the lines, the most varying the values), X signs show the mean and dots represent outliers (i.e. values outside the most meaningful quartiles). Box and whisker charts can be put to great use in statistical and financial charts, notably, in addition or in contrast of histogram charts.

IXlsChart chart = worksheet.NewChart(enumChartType.charttype_boxwhisker,
					     10, //row1
					     2, //col1 
					     25, //row2
					     10 //col2
					     );

IXlsChartDynamicDataSourceSeries s1 = chart.DynamicDataSource.AddSerie();
s1.SeriesValuesFormula = "=Sheet1!$B$2:$B$16";
s1.DataLabelsFormula   = "=Sheet1!$A$2:$A$16";

IXlsChartDynamicDataSourceSeries s2 = chart.DynamicDataSource.AddSerie();
s2.SeriesValuesFormula = "=Sheet1!$C$2:$C$16";
s2.DataLabelsFormula   = "=Sheet1!$A$2:$A$16";

IXlsChartDynamicDataSourceSeries s3 = chart.DynamicDataSource.AddSerie();
s3.SeriesValuesFormula = "=Sheet1!$D$2:$D$16";
s3.DataLabelsFormula   = "=Sheet1!$A$2:$A$16";

chart.MainTitle.Label = "Box and Whisker chart type";

Build 4.0.0.7 of xlsgen adds support for creating Excel 2016 waterfall charts. As the name implies, these are Excel 2016 charts in that only Excel 2016 will render those charts, no older Excel version will do. xlsgen reads, creates and writes such charts.


Waterfall charts in xlsgen

Waterfall charts can be used for showing differences between values. When the current value is higher than the previous value, a positive color is used (first color in the current theme). And when the current value is lower than the previous value, a negative color is used. By showing those color-coded differences over the entire series, it is possible to visualize how the value is evolving over time. Stock tick charts are often waterfall charts.

Special values can be used and formatted accordingly to rebase the differences, often for showing a total in the values. For this to work, a boolean property called WaterfallRebase in the IXlsChartDataElement interface is available, i.e. the i-th data point of a given series of values.

And they are very simple to create :

IXlsChart chart = worksheet.NewChart(enumChartType.charttype_waterfall,
                                             10, //row1
                                             2, //col1 
                                             25, //row2
                                             10 //col2
                                             );

IXlsChartDynamicDataSourceSeries s1 = chart.DynamicDataSource.AddSerie();
s1.SeriesValuesFormula = "=Sheet1!$A$1:$A$9";

At first I did not understand why Microsoft chose to force the upgrade to Windows 10 computers to everyone using Windows 7 or 8, especially given that this is an unproven, unstable and break changing operating system, and the only result of this would be Microsoft sued in multiple parts of the world.

But as the year is ending and I see so many new computer devices not needing Windows at all to function, let alone all full computers about to ship with Android as operating system, it becomes natural that Microsoft took that route. They know it's over, and this is their last, and by that I mean really last, resort to bring attention to customers who do not care anymore.

Microsoft has had their days. When PCs were booming, you couldn't purchase PC without a Windows license on it, no matter how bad this operating system was (Internet Explorer for instance is the perfect example of why Windows be just a kernel, not something with so much overreach in so many areas). But those times are behind us. If you want a computing device, you no longer need a PC. And if you have already got a PC, you have absolutely zero reason to buy a new one since there is zero innovation in PCs these days. Innovation and startup are moving fast in portable computing devices, and PCs is no longer the computer of choice for most people going forward.

How will that end? We won't know from Microsoft directly because, as you know, whenever they have bad news, they simply hide it in their quarterly earnings (to this day, no one knows how many Surface devices have been sold so far, and no one knows if Microsoft made a single dollar of profit on them : talk about trusting those guys). The writing is on the wall. And the last straw by the way was a result of Microsoft screwing their developer base by making it always more difficult to run an arbitrary WIN32 software application on a PC (Windows smart filtering blocks any software that has not enough reputation, which means Microsoft thinks they get to choose which software developer is allowed to have their application run or not). Completely screwed their developer base, how do they think developers are going back now? Throw in the money Microsoft. Send me a million dollars, and I might reconsider writing stuff on your awful platform. Less money won't do. Fuck you assholes.