ConceptDraw can be efficiently used to visualize data from external sources. For instance, this sample builds bar charts from data about sales turnover, contained in text files.
The files Diagram1.txt and Diagram2.txt contain information about revenue of several affiliates of a company in various regions. The BarChart.cdb file contains macros which read information from these files and build 2D and 3D bar charts based on the data. For Diagram1.txt vertical diagrams are built, for Diagram2.txt - horizontal ones. The program uses shapes, contained in the ChartingFigures.cdl library, supplied with ConceptDraw, and also placed in the same folder with this sample. In the group shapes, inside which the mentioned diagrams are created, text properties are saved. These properties contain the full name of the file, from which the data was last time read. So, next time the BarChart.cdx document is opened or on executing the "Refresh" command from the user menu the diagrams will be updated without asking for the name of the data file. The macro assumes that the data in the text file are specifically formatted. For instance, in Diagram1.txt the location of the affiliate must be specified in the first column, and information about total revenue in the ninth one. In Diagram2.txt this information is stored in the second and thirds columns respectively.
If the "Enable ConceptDraw Basic script autorun" flag is set in the Preferences dialog of Conceptdraw, on opening the BarChart.cdx document a new submenu Fill Diagrams will be added to the Tools menu. It allows to build diagrams based on data in corresponding formats. You can refresh each diagram separately, buy choosing the name of the source file, or refresh all previously drawn diagrams.
If the "Enable ConceptDraw Basic script autorun" flag is not set in the Preferences dialog of ConceptDraw, the script can be run from the ConceptDraw Basic editor (Tools->ConceptDraw Basic->Document Script->Edit). Then you'll need to run the CreateUserMenu() procedure from the Build->Run menu. The user menu will be automatically added to the Tools menu of the document window.
