DPlot

Is it possible to have an XY scatter plot (or perhaps a bar chart) use a 3rd column of data to define the symbol style, size, or maybe color?

Seems like this could be an extension of the XYZ scatterplot functionality whereby the Z field does not define a new dimension, but rather a class for symbol style, size or color. There would need to be a dialog box for selecting either style, size or color, then defining either a discrete or continuous selection of Z field values for the symbol selection.

For example, say I have XY data of height versus weight. I might want to choose different symbol shape for the data points belonging to male and female (Z field). Or maybe I have a XYZZ dataset where field Z1 is gender (discrete symbol difference) and field Z2 is age which could define a common continuous color ramp for the two symbol shapes.

Is it possible to have an XY scatter plot (or perhaps a bar chart) use a 3rd column of data to define the symbol style, size, or maybe color?

Style: no, never considered that before.
Size and color: yes, see Options>Bubble plot.

Thanks. I wasn't familiar with the bubble plot, but now I am.

Is there a way to have the legend express what the range of symbol color or size is based on? For example, in the graph below, how would I show that the color ramp ranges between 0.5 and 2.0 inches per hour?

... how would I show that the color ramp ranges between 0.5 and 2.0 inches per hour?

Well.. the easiest way of course is to type "0.5-2.0 inches/hr". In the more general case you could use "$YMIN(n) - $YMAX(n) inches/hr", where n is the index of the curve containing the bubble amplitudes. But that may show more significant figures than you want. In that case you could use something like "$=(MROUND($YMIN(n),0.1)) - $=(MROUND($YMAX(n),0.1)) inches/hr"

Thanks!

Your suggestion lead me to discover Text Placeholders for automatically calculating information in titles and notes. That's a really handy tool that I was unaware of.

I know writing a manual is alot of work, but your blog is helpful from time to time. Maybe you could host a quarterly webinar (gotomeeting.com is easy and reasonably priced) where you answer and demonstrate pre-submitted questions from the forum. You could even record the webinar and post the demos on youtube and link them on the blog.

I know writing a manual is alot of work, but your blog is helpful from time to time.

Glad you think so, and thanks for mentioning it. (For those that normally get here via the DPlot Help menu and aren't aware of the blog, see http://www.dplot.com/blog/ . ) Next up: An example using text placeholders

As for a live meeting... good suggestion but that just can't happen. I definitely need to bump up the blog-post frequency, though, and I'll make an effort to do that.

For those that normally get here via the DPlot Help menu and aren't aware of the blog...

An email notice of new posts to the blog might help drive traffic in that direction.