Customizing visuals in a free-form layout

You can use the free-form layout to fully customize the color, size, location, and visibility of each visual in a dashboard.

Organizing visuals

As well as dragging a visual to its preferred location within a dashboard, there are many different ways to move a visual to an exact location.

Enter the coordinates of the visual's location

  1. Select the visual that you want.

  2. In the upper-right corner, click the Format icon.

  3. In the Format pane, click Placement.

  4. Enter the X and Y coordinates of the required location. You can also adjust the size of the visual by entering width and height values. You can also move the selected visuals pixel-by-pixel using your keyboard's arrow keys. Additionally, you can overlay visuals on top of one another to create multi-layered visuals that show data or you can organize visuals into multiple layers that you can manually move to the front and back.

Move overlaid visuals to the front and back

  1. Select the visual that you want.

  2. In the upper-right corner, click the Menu options icon and then select one of the following:

    • Send to back: Sends the visual to the back.

    • Send backward: Sends the visual one layer back.

    • Bring forward: Brings the visual one layer forward.

    • Bring to front: Brings the visual to the front.

Changing a visual's background color

You can customize the colors of a visual’s background and border in the Style pane of the Format menu.

Change the color of a visual's background

  1. Select the visual that you want to change.

  2. In the upper-right corner, click the Format icon.

  3. In the Format pane, click Style.

  4. Under the Background color switch, click the color box and click Custom color.

  5. Select the color that you want. You can also enter a color's hexadecimal code or change the color's opacity.

  6. Click Apply.

NOTE   You can also reset a visual’s customized background back to its default appearance.

Reset the appearance of a visual

  1. Select the visual that you want to change.

  2. In the upper-right corner, click the Format icon.

  3. In the Format pane, click Style and then click Reset.

Changing the color of visual Borders

You can customize the color of a visual's border.

Change the color of a visual's border

  1. Select the visual that you want to change.

  2. In the upper-right corner, click the Format icon.

  3. In the Format pane, click Style.

  4. Under the Border color switch, click the color box and click Custom color.

  5. Select the color that you want. You can also enter a color's hexadecimal code or change the color's opacity.

  6. Click Apply.

Changing a visual's selection color

You can customize the color that appears around a visual when it is selected.

Change the color of a visual's selection border

  1. Select the visual that you want to change.

  2. In the upper-right corner, click the Format icon..

  3. In the Format pane, click Style.

  4. Under the Selection color switch, click the color box and click Custom color.

  5. Select the color that you want. You can also enter a color's hex code or change the color's opacity.

  6. Click Apply.

Hiding visual backgrounds, borders, and selection colors

You can choose not to show the background border or selection color of a visual. These options are useful for when you want to overlap multiple visuals. You can hide a visual’s background, border, and selection colors by clearing the Show border, Show background, and Selection color switches. You can also remove a visual’s loading animation by clearing the Show loading animation switch.

Disabling visual menus

By using the Interactions panel in the Format menu, you can turn off the Context menu and On-visual menu from appearing on selected visuals. You can also disable secondary visual menus to make the visual less crowded or to make a visual act like an overlay. The Context menu opens on data-point clicks. The common actions in the Context menu include Focus, Exclude, and Drill-down.

The on-visual menu appears on the upper-right side of a visual. You can use the menu to access the Format icon, maximize the visual, and access the Menu options panel.

You can turn off the secondary visual menus by clearing the Context menu and On-visual menu options.

NOTE   You cannot preview changes to the Interactions panel in Analyses. Publish the dashboard to view your changes.