Pretty graphs in Graph Builder

[bobmorrane]

Hello,

I believe the graph builder is the best part of JMP. It is very powerful and allows to make a lot of visualization in an easy way, much quicker than you could ever do in Excel. I'm also pretty sure that a lot of JMP users use only the graph builder and barely any other functionalities, so I believe there is a strong business case to keep improving it.

So, GB is great but it kinda lacks polish. It feels like all the graphs I make look the same. Always the same layout and colours. 

Always with this same basic look, with a really oldschool win98 feel to it. Everything is one solid colour, no difference between outline and fill colour, no effects of shadow, transparency, perspective, everything is flat. 

Wouldn't it be nice if we add some options to customize that?  You know, all the small things you can do in Excel to make graphs pretty. 

For examples, giving bars in bar chart a different aspect. Hatch patterns, hollow bars, 3D bars, etc. 

Being able to easily choose where the legends are, having a few pre-selected layouts, like these models from Excel:

Being able to more easily change various aspect of a graph. Example: I want to place a graph on a powerpoint presentation and the axis legends are a bit small. I would be much quicker to have a Font Size button in a toolbar, rather than having to open a separate window for this. Same for changing colours and other elements.

Being able to resize everything in the graph builder. There are some situations where the text is a bit too long for the legends, so sometimes you end up with a legend taking half the space of the graph. Especially if you use overlay/colors etc. Being able to easily change this would be great.

A good way to do this would be for each element in the graph to behave like a Text box. I mean Text box in the sense of how they behave in MS Word/ Powerpoint, that you can just click on and resize. Even better would be if this could be pasted in powerpoint in the same way an excel graph is pasted. (where it can still be edited and resized). 

Also there are some visualisations that are missing.

for example scatterplot on top of bar chart :

I don't believe one can make spider charts either:

Here is an example of a better looking graph, you can make in Excel, in one click from an existing graph: 

Isn't that a hell of a lot nicer to look at than the one below? 

[dale_lehman]

I actually don't agree with these wishes.  First, many of the modifications are already fairly easy to do in Graph Builder (have you tried to use the Customize option on the graph?  It provides many of the things you are looking for).  Sure, some additional graph types would be nice but only marginal improvements.  The idea what you want "prettier" graphs kind of upsets me - perhaps it is just a poor choice of words, but many "pretty" colors or visual effects are simply bad practice.  I do agree, however, that the look of graphs, even after adjustment, are still somewhat less professional looking than what you can get from Tableau.

I'd rather see the JMP designers work on integrating more of the analysis platforms into Graph Builder.  I share with bobmorrane the feeling that Graph Builder is the best part of JMP (along with Tabulate).  In fact, Graph Builder and Tabulate, both of which were not in the original JMP versions, provide 2 excellent entry points for data exploration and analysis.  I think a lot more could be done to integrate the analysis platforms into these two platforms (this has already happened with the myriad Graph platforms that still appear as legacy platforms).