Scale

Overview

You can configure the timeline scale - for example, you can set its minimum & maximum values and specify zoom levels. These settings affect the position and relative size of timeline elements, the number of timeline columns, and the configuration of the header.

The scale is defined as an instance of the anychart.scales.GanttDateTime class.

To access the scale, combine getTimeline() with scale().

To configure it, call the following methods:

Minimum & Maximum

The maximum() and minimum() methods allow setting the minimum and maximum dates of the scale:

// set the minimum and maximum values of the scale
chart.getTimeline().scale().minimum("2018-01-01");
chart.getTimeline().scale().maximum("2018-07-15");

As you can see, the minimum and maximum affect the position and relative size of timeline elements:

Playground

Levels

The settings of zoom levels affect the number of timeline columns and the configuration of the header.

By default, there are three levels, each of them representing a time unit. The exact set of units depends on your data. You can change this preset by passing an array of settings to the zoomLevels() method.

Each entry of the array is an object standing for a level. There you should specify two values, unit and count: the time unit of the level and the number of units per column.

// set zoom levels of the scale
chart.getTimeline().scale().zoomLevels([
  [
    {unit: "year", count: 1},
    {unit: "month", count: 3}
  ]
]);

Alternatively, you can pass just an array of units (the default count is 1):

// configure the scale
chart.getTimeline().scale().zoomLevels([["month", "quarter"]]);

Note: Levels must be listed in a particular order: from the level with the smallest time unit to the level with the largest one. For example, the millisecond goes before the second, the month goes before the year, and so on.

The available units can be found in anychart.enums.Interval:

  • "millisecond"
  • "second"
  • "minute"
  • "hour"
  • "day"
  • "week"
  • "third-of-month"
  • "month"
  • "quarter"
  • "semester"
  • "year"

In this sample, there are two levels, the month and the quarter:

// configure the scale
chart.getTimeline().scale().zoomLevels([
  [
    {unit: "month", count: 1},
    {unit: "quarter", count: 1}
  ]
]);

Playground

Fiscal Year

You can set the starting month of the fiscal year - pass a number from 1 to 12 to the fiscalYearStartMonth() method. The default value is 1 (January).

// set the starting month of the fiscal year
chart.getTimeline().scale().fiscalYearStartMonth(2);

This setting determines the way how quarters, semesters, and years are calculated. For example, here it affects the second and third levels of the header, which display quarters and years:

Playground