Navigating Charts

This page covers how the tree is organized for data visualizations — bar charts, line charts, scatterplots, and the like. For the general navigation concepts, see Understanding the Tree.

The chart levels

A chart tree has three levels of detail.

Root. The top item describes the chart as a whole: "a bar chart of sales by region." This is where you land when you first navigate to the tree.

Guide. Inside a sub-chart (or directly under the root for single-view charts), you find guides: axes and legends. Each guide describes one way the data is organized — "x-axis titled region. 4 values" or "color legend titled category. 3 values." Press x, y, or l from anywhere in the tree to jump straight to a guide.

Data. Under each guide, the data breaks down into intervals or categories. A nominal x-axis lists each category; a quantitative y-axis divides the range into intervals. This is the most detailed level, where you can explore individual data points.

Axes and legends

An axis and a legend are both guides — they appear at the same level of the tree. The difference is how they organize the data: an axis groups by position (x or y), while a legend groups by a visual property like color, size, or opacity. The underlying data is the same; a legend just offers a different way to slice it.

Multi-view charts

Some charts contain multiple views. The most common types:

• Layered: multiple marks drawn on the same axes (e.g., a line chart with points on top). Each layer is a separate view.
• Faceted: the same chart repeated for subsets of the data (e.g., one bar chart per region). Each facet is a separate view.
• Concatenated: different charts placed side by side in a dashboard. Each sub-chart is a separate view.

In all cases, each view has its own guides and data underneath it. You arrow sideways between views, then press Down Arrow to enter one.

Try it out

Open any chart in the gallery — the bar chart is a good place to start. Navigate through the levels to see how the descriptions change as you go deeper.

Next

• Navigating Diagrams — how diagram trees differ from charts.
• Dialogs — opening tables, filters, and more.