VARCHART JGantt - Product Features

User Interactions

In VARCHART JGantt, user interactions such as create, delete and drag & drop activities, modify time scales and tables, collapse and expand groups of activities and many more are handled by the component. A programmer can react to those user interactions by registering specific events and can tailor the application to his customer's individual needs.

In addition, VARCHART JGantt allows for cross-diagram interactions. By means of drag&drop an activity can be dragged from one Gantt diagram to a different one, e.g. in order to assign a task to a person or to a machine.

Phantoms of the objects displayed in a diagram (for example of bars) support the interactions of users by indicating or tracing the movements of the objects. Phantoms can be customized in many ways. Messages in information windows, that support users during interactions, can also be customized.

User Interactions in Buttons and menu Items

The most common user interactions such as selecting, creating or deleting nodes have been concentrated into few calls. This facilitates their use in push buttons of tool bars or in the menu invoked by the right button of the mouse. User actions can be deleted from the menu or menu texts can be modified. You can also allocate symbols to the user actions in the push buttons or menu items.

Tool Bar File for Diagram Functions

You can place a control panel above the diagram that offers a variety of file and diagram functions to your customer. Apart from file storing, page settings, page preview, zooming and printing you can switch off or on elements such as the diagram title, the time scale, the table and row titles. You can remove single or all push buttons if needed, or add own ones.

Page Preview and Printing

Printing capabilities of Gantt charts are included in the component allowing for zooming and and for scaling a diagram to page size, for paging and for page previews, for comfortable viewing and navigating.

  • You can specify the number of pages wide and high to define the exact matrix to be printed.
  • You can define the number of table columns to re-appear on each page, separately for the first page and for the succeeding pages.
  • You can also select for a defined section of the time axis and the corresponding section of the Gantt graph to be printed. When printed, the section of Gantt graph that holds activities is automatically selected.
  • You can reduce or enlarge the time scale to adapt the size of the diagram to the size of the page to be printed.
  • If groups of nodes are present in a diagram, you can set whether a page break is allowed only after complete groups or whether a page break is allowed within a group.

Bars

Activities in a chart of Varchart JGantt can be displayed either by a variety of pre-defined bar shapes, or can be composed from the scratch. Any shape and pattern is available, even dynamic bars that actively grow or diminish to indicate the degree of completion of an activity. This animated picture shows a completion bar.

The assignment of graphical attributes is data based. You can, for example, display all tasks of a specific department in red, or set symbols to mark certain activities.

Annotations can be added to bars and symbols. This animated picture demonstrates selected positions of annotations on a bar.

Grouping and Sorting in Gantt Charts

Activities in Gantt charts can be grouped after criteria. Group nodes can be defined and graphically accentuated in the Gantt graph as well as in the table. Groups at different levels can be formed by using different criteria.

For a concise presentation, a group can be collapsed to hide subordinated groups and activities. For a more detailed presentation the groups can be expanded.

This animated picture shows groups in two different states of collapsing: completely collapsed groups where bars may overlap, and "optimized" collapsed groups, where overlapping bars are put in a second row.

Ungrouped as well as grouped activities can be sorted. Also, the groups themselves can be sorted. You can define on or more criteria for sorting.

Hierarchical Arrangement of Nodes

Nodes in Gantt charts can be arranged in a hierarchy by defining a hierarchy code. Nodes on lower levels can be displayed to be indented in the table. Low level areas can interactively be collapsed and expanded.

This animated picture demonstrates collapsing and expanding of the second and third level by clicking on the hierarchy symbols in the table.

Table Features

The table offers a variety of options that make it look exactly the way your customers want it to look. You can set attributes to the table via filter objects. So table rows of activities that match the conditions in the filter will look the way you defined. Group nodes can have their own row format. You can group nodes by different attributes; special attributes are available for summary nodes. You can indent the row titles according to the group level of a node. Groups can be interactively collapsed and expanded by the user. A user can mark a table row simultanously with its node in the Gantt graph.

Histogram

VARCHART JGantt allows to display the workload and the capacity of your facilieties or project by a histogram that automatically adapts to your current planning situation. Quickly display current work load and available capacities. Excess load and shortfall can be shown in many different ways. In addition, VARCHART JGantt offers

  • different curve types: line, step and resource curves
  • different fill patterns areas:
    - limited by the x-axis
    - limited by a reference line
    - limited by two curves
    - representing shortfall or excess
  • integrated calculation capabilities for
    - stacked curves
    - cumulated curves
    - scaled curves

The data of the histogram are easy to synchronize with data of the Gantt graph.

This animated picture demonstrates how an added resource (yellow bar) automatically adds to the established work load in the histogram.

This animated picture shows work overload bars in a histogram. A capacity curve indicates the maximum workload of a system. Values above the curve are overload values. In the histogram, overload bars can be marked dynamically, for example by a hatching pattern or a different color. They indicate immediately a critical situation in a system.

Integrated PERT/CPM Scheduling

VARCHART JGantt offers an integrated PERT/CPM scheduling module. It allows to calculate the final date of the project when the start date and the dates of the activities are given (forward calculation). It also offers to calculate when to start your project with the finishing date given. You can have indicated out for each activity, how much it can move without influencing adjacent activities (free float) and you can have calculated how much total work-free time remains if the final date of the project remains stable (total float).

Beside offering conditions for the relations between activities (e.g. activity A must not start before activity B has finished), restrictions are also accepted by the calculations (e.g. start not earlier than..., finish not later than). In addition, the activities themselves can enter a feedback into the calculation in terms of their state, such as their degree of completion.

The data of scheduler is easy to synchronize with the data of the Gantt graph.

Visualizing Time Patterns

  • Grids: In the background of a Gantt diagram line grids and calendar grids can be displayed, which may show simple or complex time patterns. This way, the time context of an activity can be visualized and can be recognized at a glance.
  • Section grids: Different sections of the Gantt graph can show different time patterns.
  • Date lines: Date lines can highlight special dates, for example a time-now line.
  • Line design: Line colors, line thickness and line types can be configuered.
  • Collapsing/expanding: Also, the time scale allows to visualize time patterns. For example, weekends can show a separate color. In addition, those periods can be collapsed. This way, workfree periods can visually disappear and re-appear, by collapsing and expanding time scale areas, the dependent sections in the Gantt graph included. This animated picture demonstrates how a calendar grid collapses and expands its weekends. The picture below shows, what a collapsed time scale may look like, and in which way the collapsed periods may show (for example by wave lines).
  • Automatic unit adaptation: Depending on the resolution of the time scale, the time unit displayed automatically adapts: when the user zooms the time scale, weeks may turn into days, days into hours etc.

More Features

Bars can be connected by links of different types. Vertical and horizontal grids can be placed in the Gantt graph. The time scale can be customized by their number, by postion, scaling, colors and font.

  • Groups can be sorted after selected criteria
  • Dates in the time scale can be formatted dynamically (Java Date Format)
  • The time scale type automatic adapts to the resoulution
  • Profiles in the calendar can be written/loaded in XML format
  • Time grids and date lines allow to adjust line color, line thickness and line type
  • Not only the can the appData base be saved completely, but also single entity sets can be stored in XML format

Technical Requirements

VARCHART JGantt has been written in pure Java and can therefore be run on any common platform that dispose of Java 2 version 1.3 (swing) or a later version.

Development Platforms:

  • JBuilder (Borland)
  • Eclipse
  • NetBeans
  • WebSphere

Services

Along with our products, we offer complemental services:

  • Components include documentation, tutorial, online support
  • Hotline support
  • Maintenance agreement
  • Training courses for users
  • Functions requested by customers can be added
  • Free trial version including 30 days of support

PDF File for Download

A description of the product features is also available as a PDF file here:

VARCHART JGantt Overview Leaflet

2.7 MB