I’ve used the accordion selector in many dashboards - what a great tool. But, I have had a long term intermittent problem with it in the way it randomly displays or blanks the first menu item text when a dashboard is first opened and the accordion menu is displayed for the first time if located on subordinate displays.
I have tried just about everything from changing resolutions in both Xcelsius and desktop, different color schemes, and trying different property settings. Removed and re-added multiple times and even rebuilt the entire dashboard on different computers. In the end, I have had to set the default selection to item 2 which works fine, but prefer item 1 to be first select. After using the selector and selecting the first menu item, the first menu text never blanks - just the first time you see the accordion selector.
All dashboard outputs are always generated as exportable stand-alone SWF files. End users all see the problem across different platforms and desktop resolutions window sizes…etc.
Anybody else experience this - or have a work around? This has been happening for a long time, but current snapshot of versioning is below.
Dashboards 4.0
Version 6.0.7.0
Build 14.0.7.1147
MS Office Pro 2010 32bit
Adobe flash ver. 17.0.0.134
Thanks Nycpriya and Lugh… Well, I would say I have mastered them and use them in almost every dashboard created. They range from being able to select 20+ simple location names to more elaborate huge data array selectors. It’s an impressive way to perform sizable array selects with little impact on performance - side stepping index/match/lookups. Funny thing is many work just fine with no UI problems at all. Just a couple dashboards have problems.
Just have the one little nag UI problem - not a show stopper - but just has that less than 100% polish and professional look. Removed it… added it back several times. Rebuilt the dashboard (many hours) from scratch with same issue. Changed resolutions and window sizing. Probably in the end… blame it on Flash. Hah!
I mostly use filtered rows mode, with 3-4 categories, and 8 to 10 labels under each category. The selected Item on the behavior tab is set to highlight/select the default Category 1, Item 1. On first display of the accordion selector after opening the swf, the text and background color that should show that Item 1 is selected is blank/missing - the rest of the item text and category names are fine. If you select say Item 2, the text for item 1 returns and never shows the problem again until you close and re-open the swf. If I change the default to select Cat 1/Item 2 - Item 2 is selected - has text - and item 1 text is fine. I use just the default color schemes and appearance settings. Behavior settings are default with the exception of Dynamic vis.
Out of curiosity, can you build them in such a way that the categories are NOT hard-coded? That was the huge show-stopper for me. My top level can change based on other filters, and I couldn’t get around that.
Hmmm… never really had to have dynamic categories (cats), but the cat names can be fixed or mapped to individual cells. So, any logic that you want that updates the names in those cells should be immediately reflected in the cat names in the accordion selector. I know a lot of folks on BOB have discussed multi-tier level selection (3-5 tiers). Should work, just add time and logic and stir quickly.
It’s built for it… even the behavior tab has a selection to ignore blank cat names. So, on open say your using 6 cats, and on interaction you change the 6 cells to 3 names and 3 blanks, it should just display only the 3 with names. Another selection hides empty cats, so items (labels) listings that are logically adjusted to the new cat structures dynamically will also work in favor of blanking unused cats.
I couldn’t get it to work. And a couple other posts showed people having the same issue. The only way to get a truly dynamic accordion is to base it on a hierarchy, which requires a BeX query.
Really… I just built a demo in like 15 minutes. Completely works. SWF attached. Sorry, food and autos came to mind first.
Maybe I don’t fully understand what you need to do… but the attached demo fully exercises the ability to change cats and labels on the fly on a single accordion selector. So I guess you could say I’m selecting a specific food within a food group to eat while traveling in a specific Make and Model of car. So, this is already four layers deep… you could take it hundred more. You could add buttons to return up one tier or reset and return to the top tier. I could have just as well used the item selection to drive the changing of the accordion cats and item rather than a toggle button.
Oh by the way getting back to my original concern… please note that the accordion selector in the attached demo defaults to cat 1, item 1 and text and highlighting for item 1 are visible when first opened… it’s a roll of the dice for me. Accord Dyno.zip (1021.0 KB)
Lugh,
I’m going to have to concur with you… The accordion component is not very user friendly - far from plug and play for multi-tier selection beyond 2 tiers. I was curious if I ever needed to employ a multi-tier selector could I get this to work. Spent a few hours on the weekend and got it to work to four tiers… but a lot of work. The selector, three buttons, two history components, and a lot of logic. Using the history components to capture and retain smart number logic through the tier selections and then decoding the numbers to produce text selections made.
First time I needed to use the history components. Even they turned out to be really lacking. They would have fit like a glove if you could… based on a separate changing value trigger, move a source value to a destination. But you can only transfer the trigger cell. Who thinks up this stuff - obviously they don’t use the components. Anyway, even that took additional work-arounds.
I do have to admit… excel has needed a built in History formula function forever. So, I should give the BOE folks a BooYa for what they have. More stuff for the wish board.