how to set chart.js grid color for line chart

Question

I want to change the grids color of my line chart using options field but I have no idea from where to begin. I First tried to change the canvas backgroud colors using gradient but the results weren't good.

canvas{
background:linear-gradient(top, #ea1a07 0%, #f4b841 75%,#f2dd43 100%);
}

However, I didn't get what I want because as you see in the above image, not only the grids were colored but also the x values, y labels and the chart legend were colored too.

Picture of the result I'm getting with this css code

Example of what I want to get

my chart.js options are

options = {
        scales: {
          xAxes: [{
            gridLines: {
              color: 'rgba(171,171,171,1)',
              lineWidth: 1
            }
          }],
          yAxes: [{
            ticks: {
              beginAtZero: true,
              max: 100,
              min: 0,
              stepSize: 10
            },
            gridLines: {
              color: 'rgba(171,171,171,1)',
              lineWidth: 0.5
            }
          }]
        },
        responsive: true
      };

So, is there a way to set only the grid's background to 3 different colors (with gradient or not)? NB: I'm using chart.js with angular 2 (ng2-charts)

Answer 1

The easiest way to do this is to use the chartjs-plugin-annotation plugin and configure 3 box annotations bound to your Y axis (each box would have a different color).

Here is an example below (and you can see it in action with this codepen).

var ctx = document.getElementById("myChart");
var myChart = new Chart(ctx, {
  type: 'line',
  data: {
    datasets: [{
      label: 'Points',
      data: [
        {x: 0, y: 2},
        {x: 1, y: 3}, 
        {x: 2, y: 2},
        {x: 1.02, y: 0.4},
        {x: 0, y: -1}
      ],
      backgroundColor: 'rgba(123, 83, 252, 0.8)',
      borderColor: 'rgba(33, 232, 234, 1)',
      borderWidth: 1,
      fill: false,
    }],
  },
  options: {
    title: {
      display: true,
      text: 'Chart.js - Gridline Background',
    },
    scales: {
      xAxes: [{
        type: 'linear',
        position: 'bottom',
        ticks: {
          min: -1,
          max: 8,
          stepSize: 1,
          fixedStepSize: 1,
        },
        gridLines: {
          color: 'rgba(171,171,171,1)',
          lineWidth: 1
        }
      }],
      yAxes: [{
        afterUpdate: function(scaleInstance) {
          console.dir(scaleInstance);
        },
        ticks: {
          min: -2,
          max: 4,
          stepSize: 1,
          fixedStepSize: 1,
        },
        gridLines: {
          color: 'rgba(171,171,171,1)',
          lineWidth: 0.5
        }
      }]
    },
    annotation: {
      annotations: [{
        type: 'box',
        yScaleID: 'y-axis-0',
        yMin:  1,
        yMax: 4,
        borderColor: 'rgba(255, 51, 51, 0.25)',
        borderWidth: 2,
        backgroundColor: 'rgba(255, 51, 51, 0.25)',
      }, {
        type: 'box',
        yScaleID: 'y-axis-0',
        yMin:  -1,
        yMax: 1,
        borderColor: 'rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.25)',
        borderWidth: 1,
        backgroundColor: 'rgba(255, 255, 0, 0.25)',
      }, {
        type: 'box',
        yScaleID: 'y-axis-0',
        yMin:  -2,
        yMax: -1,
        borderColor: 'rgba(0, 204, 0, 0.25)',
        borderWidth: 1,
        backgroundColor: 'rgba(0, 204, 0, 0.25)',
      }],
    }
  }
});

It's important to note that the annotations are painted on top of the chart, so your annotation color needs to contain some transparency to see the stuff behind it.

There is no problem using this plugin with ng2-charts. Just add the source in a <script> in your app's html file and add the annotation property into your options object. Here is an Angular2 / ng2-charts example demonstrating how to use the annotations plugin.