"Bring to Front" Data Labels?
 

I have a chart that has lots of data labels, so many that some of the labels
become partially obscured. I have a routine that runs whenever a label is
clicked upon, and one of the things I'd *Like* to do is to mimic a drawing
object "Bring to Front" function. Is this possible?

The way the chart is constructed might help (or hurt) my chances: I am
graphing a tree chart, instantiated as an xlXYScatterLines Chart, and each
"node" in the tree is represented by a series with two points (node and
parent node). Each series gets one datalabel (at the node, i.e. the first
point in the series gets a label, the second doesn't).

I guess it's possible that I could re-order the series collection when the
label is selected, so that the series selected is last (and thus, I presume,
the datalabel is drawn last). I don't know if this would work, but I'd
really like to avoid this since it takes a couple of seconds to redraw the
chart, and that could get annoying...

Thanks!
Rob

Rob -

You could dispense with the regular labels, and use a utility like Tushar Mehta's
Chart Hover Label add-in (http://tushar-mehta.com), which pops up a custom label as
you mouse over items in the chart.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______

Rob wrote:

I have a chart that has lots of data labels, so many that some of the labels
become partially obscured. I have a routine that runs whenever a label is
clicked upon, and one of the things I'd *Like* to do is to mimic a drawing
object "Bring to Front" function. Is this possible?

The way the chart is constructed might help (or hurt) my chances: I am
graphing a tree chart, instantiated as an xlXYScatterLines Chart, and each
"node" in the tree is represented by a series with two points (node and
parent node). Each series gets one datalabel (at the node, i.e. the first
point in the series gets a label, the second doesn't).

I guess it's possible that I could re-order the series collection when the
label is selected, so that the series selected is last (and thus, I presume,
the datalabel is drawn last). I don't know if this would work, but I'd
really like to avoid this since it takes a couple of seconds to redraw the
chart, and that could get annoying...

Thanks!
Rob

I've seen that tool, but it doesn't do the trick. The series names are bilt
programmatically, and this app doesn't let you do that. I could fix that, but
as you know the code is protected.

I was able to get a satisfactory solution by using the MouseMove event and
building (or rebuilding) a "last series" whenever the mouse is over a label.

Thanks.

"Jon Peltier" wrote:

Rob -

You could dispense with the regular labels, and use a utility like Tushar Mehta's
Chart Hover Label add-in (http://tushar-mehta.com), which pops up a custom label as
you mouse over items in the chart.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
http://PeltierTech.com/
_______

Rob wrote:

I have a chart that has lots of data labels, so many that some of the labels
become partially obscured. I have a routine that runs whenever a label is
clicked upon, and one of the things I'd *Like* to do is to mimic a drawing
object "Bring to Front" function. Is this possible?

The way the chart is constructed might help (or hurt) my chances: I am
graphing a tree chart, instantiated as an xlXYScatterLines Chart, and each
"node" in the tree is represented by a series with two points (node and
parent node). Each series gets one datalabel (at the node, i.e. the first
point in the series gets a label, the second doesn't).

I guess it's possible that I could re-order the series collection when the
label is selected, so that the series selected is last (and thus, I presume,
the datalabel is drawn last). I don't know if this would work, but I'd
really like to avoid this since it takes a couple of seconds to redraw the
chart, and that could get annoying...

Thanks!
Rob