The Push Button is a powerful new feature in Xcelsius SP3 that allows developers to transfer source data from an arbitrary sized cell block to a destination cell block of the same size. This gives us a triggering type mechanism where we needed to jump through hoops in order to accomplish before.

I’ve attached a video and the example xlf source file which shows how to use the push button as a default/reset button.

If you have any additional examples that you would like to share, please post them on the comments section below.

Please download the source file here

Dynamic Color Binding is a great new feature in Xcelsius SP3 that allows developers to dynamically bind colors. This gives developers total flexibility on dynamically customizing their coloring schema during run time.

I’ve attached a video which shows a couple examples on using dynamic color binding.

If you have any additional examples that you would like to share, please post them on the comments section.

In this article I’ve attached a video that talks about the new Canvas Container feature in Xcelsius 2008 SP3.
I found that the Canvas container is very easy to use and provides the same functionality as the group method but allows the flexibility of moving objects in and out of the canvas very easily.

I totally recommend that Xcelsius developers use the Canvas container method to group objects instead of the old grouping method.

I am curious of the canvas container performance and if it is buggy as I have not experienced any problems yet, so please feel free to comment with your experiences.

Join the Xcelsius gurus, Mike Alexander (Author, Crystal Xcelsius For Dummies/ Founder, Data Pig Technologies) and Mico Yuk (Founder, Everything Xcelsius / Xcelsius Gurus Network) for a 2-day Xcelsius 2008 advanced workshop this upcoming March 2010 in Dallas, TX! The workshop which contains a wide array of advanced Xcelsius tips and techniques sold out when it was first held in March of 2009 and here is why….

• Learn how to enhance your data models with advanced Excel functions
• Learn powerful dashboard design and charting techniques
• Learn tricks that will help to optimize the performance of your Xcelsius dashboards
• Gain a solid understanding of XML and XML connectivity in Xcelsius
• Create server-based logins for your Xcelsius dashboards
• Learn how to pass parameters from one Xcelsius dashboard to another
• Learn how create detailed drill-throughs in Xcelsius using encoded URLs
• Learn how to use your Xcelsius dashboards to write back to your server

Much more…

In my previous article I gave an overview of the Microcharts plug-in for Xcelsius and a quick example of creating a Microcharts Datatable. In addition, I explained how to replicate the same example in Xcelsius using workarounds that would make development much more timely and harder to maintain.

In this article I would like to talk about some important features that Inovista Microcharts has that Xcelsius cannot reproduce. A very important table component that Xcelsius lacks is the ability to expand and contract your rows like a tree. Inovista has a component called a “Microchart Tree Grid” that allows a user to expand and contract rows so that users can group their rows accordingly. This is extremely important if we don’t want to clutter a table view with too many rows.