A little while ago, I was asked to change an existing QlikView Application. While scanning the application, I found that it used Alternate States. I had already heard about Alternate States, and that they could store different user selections, but didn’t have any hands-on experience yet. I decided to dig a bit deeper into the subject before continuing. I wrote down what I learned in this post
The multibox is a QlikView object that I find extremely useful because it allows you to fit selection fields into a much smaller space. At the same time, I also find it extremely annoying; the gradient looks dated and if you want your field names and values to be readable you will often have to make both columns quite wide. For these reasons I tend to not use the multibox in my applications, using a conditionally hidden drop-down filter panel instead.
Recently, I was hired to perform a health check on an application. The application made extensive use of a multibox (in a very nice and flexible way, I should add). One of the challenges my client was facing was that not every field was relevant to every user. Besides a general technical review of the application, the developers wanted to know if it was possible to create a dynamic multibox. A multibox where users could select which fields they want to show.
As I started digging in to this question, I realized there’s a much nicer way to create a multibox. After experimenting with it for a bit, I actually like this solution so much that I will probably be using it in some of my future projects.
Two questions from business users that will probably sound familiar to most QlikView Developers:
“We currently use this report. Can you re-make this in QlikView?”
and
“Our graphics designer came up with this dashboard. Can you do that in QlikView?”
Quite often you’ll find the answer to be yes. Although admittedly, you often may also want to suggest another approach, especially when asked the first question.
Recently I was asked if the following chart could be built in QlikView:
As you can see, this chart compares relative-to-total amounts for two periods. There is a vague area that connects both bars and kind-of-but-not-so-much shows the change between the periods. I had to think a bit harder before responding to that question…
Coming to London from October 9 to 11 and to Barcelona from 14 to 16 October, the Masters Summit brings you 3 days of hands on sessions where we will discuss advanced techniques in building complex solutions with QlikView. The goal of this event is to take your QlikView skills to the next level and help you become a QlikView master.
For the early birds, there is an attractive discount of US$ 300 (around 225 Euro’s) until August 16th, which, for example, should be enough to cover air fare from most locations within Europe. Make sure you do not miss out on this great offer and:
Christmas time is coming near and I’m in a festive mood, so today I have a short post to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Of course, it wouldn’t be a QlikFix Christmas if I hadn’t whipped up a little visual effect in QlikView. Without further ado, here is my QlikView Christmas card to you:
But wait, there’s more! Inspired by the Christmas theme over at Matt Fryer’s QlikView Addict blog (a recommended read, by the way), I decided to create a small document extension that lets you add a little Christmas spirit to your own QlikView documents. Amaze (or annoy) your clients, co-workers and users! For example, how about adding a little snow to the golf course? read more »
After many months of hard work, today I am proud and excited to announce the upcoming release of the new QlikView book that Mike García and I wrote together:
QlikView 11 for Developers
With 500 pages of original content and an extensive collection of code samples, we believe this book contains everything new (and seasoned) QlikView developers should know in order to put QlikView 11 to productive use.
The book will be published by Packt Publishing and is scheduled for release on November 15th. If you want to secure a copy for yourself, pre-orders can be placed via this page.
Of course, writing a book is not a solo (or in our case, duo) exercise. Mike and I could not have done it without the great contributions of:
In the coming weeks, we will be giving you insights into the book and will also be giving away a few copies, so be sure to watch this space. You can get notified of new posts by entering your email address in the input box in the top right corner of this page.
Update 2012/11/20: yesterday we were informed by the publisher that both the print version and the e-book will be released on November 23rd.
Update 2012/11/29: for those that are unable to download the code bundle from the publisher’s website, you can also download it from this link: http://bit.ly/CodeBundle
With so many people commenting positively on my previoustwo pointless-but-pretty visual effects in QlikView, I’ve decided to make it an irregularly recurring Friday-afternoon series. At least, until I run out of ideas or opportunities to build these applications.
This time I’ve created an animated fire effect using a scatter plot. Like the previous two effects it has absolutely no practical application, unless you’re pitching QlikView to Industrial Light & Magic 😉 The video below demonstrates the effect.
If you want to try the application for yourself, you can download it by clicking the link below. Beware that the application is quite memory-hungry, you’ll need at least 4GB to run the app.
After the many enthusiastic responses to last week’s post on visual effects in QlikView, I’ve decided to post one more pretty-but-pointless animated chart before returning to the serious stuff. This time I’ve created a plasma effect using an animated scatter plot in QlikView. The video below demonstrates the application.
If you want to try out the application yourself, you can download the full application below.
Today’s post comes to you straight from the Department of Useless-But-Fun Stuff.
Many people have seen Hans Rosling’s informative (and very entertaining) presentations in which he uses his Gapminder software to present data in animated scatter plots. With the Animate Dimension function, QlikView offers similar functionality to create animated charts.
Unfortunately, as many have discovered, animating charts in QlikView does not immediately make them informative or entertaining. In fact, the opposite is quite often the case; boring data is presented in an animated form and becomes even more tedious.
Curious to see if I could create an animated chart that, while maybe not informative, at least looks pretty, I decided to create a chart based on Lissajous curves. You can see the result, which uses a standard scatter plot, in the video below. The video contains cheesy music, so check the volume level before pressing play.
Of course, this chart lacks any practical application, but I find that it does look quite cool. Incidentally, this is also the only case in which the use of shiny spheres in a scatter plot is permissible. Should you want to play around with the app, it can be downloaded below.
A short post today on an ‘annoyance’ that invariably pops up at my clients; when copy and pasting images of QlikView objects into their PowerPoint presentation or Word document, the images look blurry and slightly out of focus.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to solve this. Instead of using the regular paste option, use paste special to paste the image as a bitmap.
A little while ago, I was asked to change an existing QlikView Application. While scanning the application, I found that it used Alternate States. I had already heard about Alternate States, and that they could store different user selections, but didn’t have any hands-on experience yet. I decided to dig a bit deeper into the subject before continuing. I wrote down what I learned in this post
The multibox is a QlikView object that I find extremely useful because it allows you to fit selection fields into a much smaller space. At the same time, I also find it extremely annoying; the gradient looks dated and if you want your field names and values to be readable you will often have to make both columns quite wide. For these reasons I tend to not use the multibox in my applications, using a conditionally hidden drop-down filter panel instead.
After many months of hard work, today I am proud and excited to announce the upcoming release of the new QlikView book that 
Download the QlikView Animated Fire app
