How to show an Empty Google Chart when there is no data?
What I do is initialize my chart with 1 column and 1 data point (set to 0). Then whenever data gets added I check if there is only 1 column and that it is the dummy column, then I remove it. I also hide the legend to begin so that it doesn't appear with the dummy column, then I add it when the new column gets added.
Here is some sample code you can plug in to the Google Visualization Playground that does what I am talking about. You should see the empty chart for 2 seconds, then data will get added and the columns will appear.
var data, options, chart;
function drawVisualization() {
data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable([
['Time', 'dummy'],
['', 0],
]);
options = {
title:"My Chart",
width:600, height:400,
hAxis: {title: "Time"},
legend : {position: 'none'}
};
// Create and draw the visualization.
chart = new google.visualization.ColumnChart(document.getElementById('visualization'));
chart.draw(data,options);
setTimeout('addData("12:00",10)',2000);
setTimeout('addData("12:10",20)',3000);
}
function addData(x,y) {
if(data.getColumnLabel(1) == 'dummy') {
data.addColumn('number', 'Your Values', 'col_id');
data.removeColumn(1);
options.legend = {position: 'right'};
}
data.addRow([x,y]);
chart.draw(data,options);
}
A even better solution for this problem might be to use a annotation column instead of a data column as shown below. With this solution you do not need to use any setTimeout or custom function to remove or hide your column. Give it a try by pasting the given code below into Google Code Playground.
function drawVisualization() {
var data = google.visualization.arrayToDataTable([
['', { role: 'annotation' }],
['', '']
]);
var ac = new google.visualization.ColumnChart(document.getElementById('visualization'));
ac.draw(data, {
title : 'Just a title...',
width: 600,
height: 400
});
}