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1. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
adamomaisano Jul 1, 2011 5:28 AM (in response to adamomaisano)Is this the right place for this post?
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2. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
James BakerJul 1, 2011 3:36 PM (in response to adamomaisano)
Not really a data source issue. But... I'm not at all certain that you can hack this together. The images map onto data-space, and if you can't freeze your axes extents, then there's really nothing that the "background images" feature can take as *input*.
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3. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
Andy CotgreaveJul 4, 2011 1:21 AM (in response to adamomaisano)
Right, I'm going on a flight of fantasy here - I have a theory. "Alan Smythee" just did a blog about opacity of thumbnails here. In it, he describes a way of pulling the PNG from Tableau Public and making it transparent.
I'm not an expert in HTML/CSS but could you do the same thing here? Draw the icons in the background, and overlay the Tableau Public PNG file on top, with a transparency setting that makes it work? I guess you'd end up with washed out axes, though.
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4. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
adamomaisano Jul 5, 2011 11:31 AM (in response to adamomaisano)@acotgreave - I like this theory. As static Tableau images, I could manipulate the elements even further so that there are three layers: two of the Tableau graph preview images sandwiching the icon image in z-space. That way, the semi-transparent "top" Tableau image will not appear to lose any opacity and still afford the icon image visibility when made 80% transparent.
However, this theory removes interactivity from the picture. There would be no hover or click feedback or tooltip information—which is preferred (but not mandatory)—for these tiny charts. Printed marker labels would remedy the info visibility aspect though, which is easy enough to do in Tableau.
Nevertheless, would you be able to share a link or some steps on how to leverage the static image version of my Tableau in case I decide to go this route?
@myself - I tried researching the ability of jQuery to be able to pass click/hover mouse events through an HTML element (the icon image in this case), when the overlay element is positioned on top of an iframe (in this case the iframe would hold the interactive Tableau graph). However, this issues with these methods get compounded further since I do not have access to the contents of the iframe (cross-domain limitations).
@James Baker - I think I understand. You are saying that the top/bottom data values need to be static or fixed, and congruent to how I configure the background-image ranges in Tableau. This data would be updated monthly though, which as you say, would not allow the background-image to work correctly once new data was added.
However, if I were to put aside the flexibility of allowing new data each month (and manually adjusting it each time), what would the bg-image settings, joins, and Excel documents need to look like to achieve this as a one-time graph? Hypothetically, of course..
If you have the power to move this thread to the right place, by all means. Sorry I didn't peg it in the right category the first time.
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5. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
James BakerJul 5, 2011 11:36 AM (in response to adamomaisano)
If you wanted to fix it up with each new data batch, then all you have to do is map your image width and height to the appropriate X axis and Y axis values in the "Background Image" dialog.
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6. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
adamomaisano Jul 12, 2011 12:08 PM (in response to adamomaisano)James, I've tried my best but cannot manipulate my data or configurations to get close to what I want - either it works and the data is disappears, or the data works, but the background image is invalid. Any chance anyone here can physically help given the documents attached, and the goal images in the original post? Keeping in mind we only have Tableau Public.
I would greatly appreciate. This could even go on as a general proof-of-concept for Tableau how-tos!
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social_activity.xls 52.0 KB
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7. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
James BakerJul 14, 2011 5:45 PM (in response to adamomaisano)
You'd just need to make your Month pill All Values + Continuous, I think.
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8. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
adamomaisano Aug 31, 2011 8:08 AM (in response to adamomaisano)Ah ha! Someone was able to do exactly what I want! This week's Most Beautiful hockey graph employs a custom background image that is not a map, and uses arbitrary axis values.
With any luck I can reverse engineer this to match my data and layout :)
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9. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
James BakerAug 31, 2011 10:00 AM (in response to adamomaisano)
What do you mean, arbitrary? The axes are fixed in the hockey viz.
Care to post a link to your Tableau Public workbook that you're struggling with?
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10. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
adamomaisano Sep 14, 2011 12:38 PM (in response to adamomaisano)The workbook I'm trying to work with is the "Mini" series of worksheets here: http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/BMD-Social-Media-Activity/Mini-Social-With-Legend
I noticed that the hockey viz uses fixed axes, yes, but it also has continuous values (green), and our values are discrete (blue), and not numbers (they are dates). So I still can't seem to get it to map because one of our axes are discrete Date types.
I suppose changing the data type in the source Excel doc to numbers representing each month, then creating a number-to-text calculation afterwards in Tableau may work...
What do you think?
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11. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
Richard Leeke Sep 14, 2011 1:28 PM (in response to adamomaisano) -
12. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
adamomaisano Sep 15, 2011 6:45 AM (in response to adamomaisano)Richard,
Can't seem to open your attachment in Tableau - after downloading and opening, it continues to say "Tableau will open the latest version of this" which is the original, not the one you edited...
Any way you could publish this under a different name online? Will that work?
I'm using Tableau Public 6.1. Thanks.
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14. Re: Background image for Month (x-axis) and Volume (y-axis)
adamomaisano Sep 15, 2011 2:02 PM (in response to adamomaisano)Total success! Thank you so much Richard for the winning configuration :)
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/BMD-Social-Media-Activity/Mini-Social-With-Legend
Problem: solved.