How to use Jqplot to show two groups of differently colored bars in the same stacked bar chart

Question

I want to make a bar chart with two sets of stacked bars which are grouped together to compare the two groups of stacked bars. This should be displayed in the following manner:

I have gone through this link

But it didn't help me plot something like you see in the above image. I even tried sending two data sets like [[s1, s2, s3], [s4, s5, s6]] But it didn't help me plot the chart. Does anyone know how to do it?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Setting the option stackSeries: true will create the desired display for bar charts.

Answer 2

Official sources:

• jqPlot Source code: source code, version 1.0.8r1250 of 2013-03-27. For this issue, src/jqplot.core.js lines 2499, 2563, and 2649.
• jqPlot Documentation: It says that the API Documentation is most accurate. you can also see the webpage, README.txt, optionsTutorial.txt, jqPlotOptions.txt, jqPlotOptions.txt, jqPlotCssStyling.txt, usage.txt, changes.txt in the 1.0.8r1250 general release

The jqPlot documentation is not up to date so I took a look at the source code. Unfortunately, there is no way to directly have two sets of bars with a stacked-bar chart. The jqPlot.stackSeries property is only a boolean value. It's only function is to tell jqPlot to stack each series on top of each other for as many bars as there are values in the different series. Each series is plotted one value per bar with the first series being on the bottom. In other words, all [0] values are plotted in the first bar, [1] values in the second, etc. The amount shown within the bar is the sum of the [n] value for the current series and all prior series. There is no way to specify that there are two, or more, groupings of series. The capability to do what is desired just does not exist in jqPlot.

But you can accomplish what you desire:

The fact that jqPlot does not natively support what you want does not mean that you can not do it, merely that you need to get creative.

The graph you desire can be looked at as being two separate graphs that have been overlaid upon each other with spacing between the bars on the individual graphs permitting enough space (seriesDefaults.rendererOptions.barMargin) for the bars from the other graph to be overlaid next to them.

You can use jqPlot to create:

That graph has the scale, background and grid-lines you desire set to be visible. Note that the graph has an extra bar in it. This is needed to provide enough background and grid-lines for the last bar provided by the other graph.

You can also use jqPlot to create the second graph:

This graph has the scale and grid-lines set in jqPlot to not be visible.

seriesDefaults.axes.xaxis.tickOptions.show = false;
seriesDefaults.axes.yaxis.tickOptions.show = false;
etc.

The background is set to be transparent. Note that you are going to need to offset the position of this graph somewhat to the right when positioning the <div> relative to the first graph.

Overlaid, you end up with:

You then use a blank <div> with the same background color as the background color of your webpage and overlay that to cover the extra bar on the first graph, but leaving enough of the first graph's background and grid-lines to extend a bit past the last bar of the second graph.

You will end up with:

You can see a working solution at at JSFiddle using jqPlot 1.0.8r1250.

Comparing the original request vs. the final version of the graph produced using this method you can see that they are very close: Between the two the most noticeable difference is the larger space between the Y-axis in the jqPlot version. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an option to reduce that amount for stacked bar charts.

Note that the lack of a border on the right of the graph this code produces is intentional because it did not exist in the original request. Personally, I prefer having a border on the right side of the graph. If you change the CSS a bit, that is easy to obtain: My preferred version of the graph includes a border on the left and balances the whitespace:

You can see a working JSFiddle of this version.

All-in-all it is not that difficult. It would, of course, be easier if jqPlot supported multiple sets of bars. Hopefully it will at some point. However, the last release was 2013-03-27 and there does not appear to have been any development work after that time. Prior to that there were releases every few months. But, jqPlot is released under the GPL and MIT licenses so anyone could continue the work.

$(document).ready(function () {
    //Numbers derived from desired image
    //var s1 = [10, 29, 35, 48, 0];
    //var s2 = [34, 24, 15, 20, 0];
    //var s3 = [18, 19, 26, 52, 0];
    //Scale to get 30 max on plot
    var s1 = [2, 5.8, 7, 9.6, 0];
    var s2 = [6.8, 4.8, 3, 4, 0];
    var s3 = [13.6, 8.8, 3, 7.8, 0];
    plot4 = $.jqplot('chart4', [s1, s2, s3], {
        // Tell the plot to stack the bars.
        stackSeries: true,
        captureRightClick: true,
        seriesColors: ["#1B95D9", "#A5BC4E", "#E48701"],
        seriesDefaults: {
            shadow: false,
            renderer: $.jqplot.BarRenderer,
            rendererOptions: {
                // jqPlot does not actually obey these except barWidth.
                barPadding: 0,
                barMargin: 66,
                barWidth: 38,
                // Highlight bars when mouse button pressed.
                // Disables default highlighting on mouse over.
                highlightMouseDown: false
            },
            title: {
                text: '', // title for the plot,
                show: false,
            },
            markerOptions: {
                show: false, // wether to show data point markers.
            },
            pointLabels: {
                show: false
            }
        },
        axes: {
            xaxis: {
                renderer: $.jqplot.CategoryAxisRenderer,
                tickOptions: {
                    show: false
                },
                lastPropertyConvenience: 0
            },
            yaxis: {
                // Don't pad out the bottom of the data range.  By default,
                // axes scaled as if data extended 10% above and below the
                // actual range to prevent data points right on grid boundaries.
                // Don't want to do that here.
                padMin: 0
            }
        },
        legend: {
            show: false,
            location: 'e',
            placement: 'outside'
        },
        grid: {
            drawGridLines: true, // wether to draw lines across the grid or not.
            shadow: false, // no shadow
            borderWidth: 1,
            background: 'white', // CSS color spec for background color of grid.
            lastPropertyConvenience: 0
        },
        lastPropertyConvenience: 0
    });
});
    
    $(document).ready(function () {
        //Numbers derived from desired image
        //var s1 = [10, 29, 35, 48, 0];
        //var s2 = [34, 24, 15, 20, 0];
        //var s3 = [18, 19, 26, 52, 0];
        //Scale to get 30 max on plot
        var s1 = [2, 5.8, 7, 9.6, 0];
        var s2 = [6.8, 4.8, 3, 4, 0];
        var s3 = [3.6, 3.8, 5.2, 10.4, 0];
        plot4 = $.jqplot('chart5', [s1, s2, s3], {
            // Tell the plot to stack the bars.
            stackSeries: true,
            captureRightClick: true,
            seriesColors: ["#754DE9", "#666666", "#000000"],
            seriesDefaults: {
                shadow: false,
                renderer: $.jqplot.BarRenderer,
                rendererOptions: {
                    // jqPlot does not obey these options except barWidth.
                    show: true,
                    barPadding: 0,
                    barMargin: 66,
                    barWidth: 38,
                    // Highlight bars when mouse button pressed.
                    // Disables default highlighting on mouse over.
                    highlightMouseDown: false
                },
                title: {
                    text: '', // title for the plot,
                    show: false,
                },
                markerOptions: {
                    show: false, // wether to show data point markers.
                },
                pointLabels: {
                    show: false
                }
            },
            axesDefaults: {
                //show: false    
            },
            axes: {
                xaxis: {
                    renderer: $.jqplot.CategoryAxisRenderer,
                    tickOptions: {
                        show: false
                    },
                    lastPropertyConvenience: 0
                },
                yaxis: {
                    show: false,
                    // Don't pad out the bottom of the data range.  By default,
                    // axes scaled as if data extended 10% above and below the
                    // actual range to prevent data points right on grid boundaries.
                    // Don't want to do that here.
                    padMin: 0,
                    tickOptions: {
                        show: false
                    },
                }
            },
            legend: {
                show: false,
                location: 'e',
                placement: 'outside'
            },
            grid: {
                drawGridLines: false, // wether to draw lines across the grid or not.
                shadow: false, // no shadow
                borderWidth: 10,
                background: 'transparent', // CSS color for background color of grid.
                gridLineColor: 'transparent', // *Color of the grid lines.
                borderColor: 'transparent', // CSS color for border around grid.
                lastPropertyConvenience: 0
            },
            lastPropertyConvenience: 0
        });
    });

#cover1 {
    padding:0;
    margin: 0;
    background-color: white;
    left: 451px;
    width: 88px;
    /* Uncomment the next three lines to have a border on the right of the graph and 
         balanced whitespace:*/
    /*
    border-left: 2px solid #CCCCCC;
    left:476px;
    width: 62px;
    */
}
#chart4 .jqplot-xaxis-tick {
    visibility: hidden;
}
#chart5 .jqplot-xaxis-tick {
    visibility: hidden;
}
#chart4 .jqplot-yaxis-tick {
    font: 9px arial
}

<link class="include" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/jqplot/1.0.8/jquery.jqplot.css" />

<!--[if lt IE 9]><script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/excanvas/r3/excanvas.js"></script><![endif]-->
<script class="include" type="text/javascript" src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.9.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<!-- Main jqPlot -->
<script class="include" type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/jqplot/1.0.8/jquery.jqplot.js"></script>
<!-- Additional jqPlot plugins -->
<script class="include" type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/jqplot/1.0.8/plugins/jqplot.barRenderer.min.js"></script>
<script class="include" type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.jsdelivr.net/jqplot/1.0.8/plugins/jqplot.categoryAxisRenderer.min.js"></script>


<div style="position:absolute; left:10px; top:10px;">
    <div id="chart4" style="width:548px; height:185px;"></div>
    <div id="chart5" style="width:536px; height:185px; top:-185px; left:53px;"></div>
    <div id="cover1" style="position: relative; height: 152px; top:-361px;"></div>
</div>

The above code is based on that at the example page listed in the question.