chart.js: Show labels outside pie chart

Question

chart.js 2.6.0

I need to render a chart that looks like this:

Always showing all tooltips is not an acceptable way, since they won't get rendered in a proper manner:

Unfortunately I couldn't find a solution yet. I've tried the piece-label plugin, but this has the same problems, since it's labels overlap and I can't hide certain labels.

Here is the code, that creates my chart using piece-label to position the labels above the slices:

private createStatusChart(): void {
    const chartData = this.getStatusChartData();

    if (!chartData) {
        return;
    }

    const $container = $(Templates.Dashboard.ChartContainer({
        ContainerID: 'chart-status',
        HeaderText: 'Status'
    }));

    this._$content.append($container);

    const legendOptions =
        new Model.Charts.LegendOptions()
            .SetDisplay(false);

    const pieceLabelOptions =
        new Model.Charts.PieceLabelOptions()
            .SetRender('label')
            .SetPosition('outside')
            .SetArc(true)
            .SetOverlap(true);

    const options =
         new Model.Charts.Options()
             .SetLegend(legendOptions)
             .SetPieceLabel(pieceLabelOptions);

    const chartDefinition = new Model.Charts.Pie(chartData, options);
    const ctx = this._$content.find('#chart-status canvas').get(0);

    const chart = new Chart(ctx, chartDefinition);
}

private getStatusChartData(): Model.Charts.PieChartData {
    if (!this._data) {
        return;
    }

    const instance = this;
    const data: Array<number> = [];
    const labels: Array<string> = [];
    const colors: Array<string> = [];

    this._data.StatusGroupings.forEach(sg => {
        if (!sg.StatusOID) {
            data.push(sg.Count);
            labels.push(i18next.t('Dashboard.NoStateSet'));
            colors.push('#4572A7');

            return;
        }

        const status = DAL.Properties.GetByOID(sg.StatusOID);

        data.push(sg.Count);
        labels.push(status ? status.Title : i18next.t('Misc.Unknown'));
        colors.push(status ? status.Color : '#fff');
    });

    const dataset = new Model.Charts.Dataset(data).setBackgroundColor(colors);

    return new Model.Charts.PieChartData(labels, [dataset]);
}

The result:

Answer 1

There is a new plugin (since a year), called chartjs-plugin-piechart-outlabels

Just import the source
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/chartjs-plugin-piechart-outlabels"></script>
and use it with the outlabeledPie type

var randomScalingFactor = function() {
return Math.round(Math.random() * 100);
};
var ctx = document.getElementById("chart-area").getContext("2d");
var myDoughnut = new Chart(ctx, {
type: 'outlabeledPie',
data: {
labels: ["January", "February", "March", "April", "May"],
...
plugins: {
        legend: false,
        outlabels: {
           text: '%l %p',
           color: 'white',
           stretch: 45,
           font: {
               resizable: true,
               minSize: 12,
               maxSize: 18
           }
        }
     }
})

Answer 2

The real problem lies with the overlapping of the labels when the slices are small.You can use PieceLabel.js which solves the issue of overlapping labels by hiding it . You mentioned that you cannot hide labels so use legends, which will display names of all slices

Or if you want exact behavior you can go with the highcharts, but it requires licence for commercial use.

var randomScalingFactor = function() {
  return Math.round(Math.random() * 100);
};
var ctx = document.getElementById("chart-area").getContext("2d");
var myDoughnut = new Chart(ctx, {
  type: 'pie',
  data: {
    labels: ["January", "February", "March", "April", "May"],
    datasets: [{
      data: [
        250,
        30,
        5,
        4,
        2,

      ],
      backgroundColor: ['#ff3d67', '#ff9f40', '#ffcd56', '#4bc0c0', '#999999'],
      borderColor: 'white',
      borderWidth: 5,
    }]
  },
  showDatapoints: true,
  options: {
    tooltips: {
      enabled: false
    },
    pieceLabel: {
      render: 'label',
      arc: true,
      fontColor: '#000',
      position: 'outside'
    },
    responsive: true,
    legend: {
      position: 'top',
    },
    title: {
      display: true,
      text: 'Testing',
      fontSize: 20
    },
    animation: {
      animateScale: true,
      animateRotate: true
    }
  }
});

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/Chart.js/2.6.0/Chart.min.js"></script>
<script src="https://cdn.rawgit.com/emn178/Chart.PieceLabel.js/master/build/Chart.PieceLabel.min.js"></script>
<canvas id="chart-area"></canvas>

Fiddle demo