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How to Add Status Icons

Table of Contents

What are the Status Icons

Images contain information. Associate textual data with small meaningful icons, and you send more info to your users. Status Icons are small contextual images we may add in front of any cell data (the data type really does not matter here).

We have three different types of Status Icons:

  1. Shape Icons – one standard shape icon (circle/square/triangle) with the same palette color for each different value within the column, until both the shape types and colors are exhausted.
  2. Custom Icons – one specific marker image from the current marker palette for each different value within the column, until the palette set is exhausted.
  3. Duplicate Icons – a specific icon – same standard shape (circle/square/triangle) and palette color for the same value – only if the cell value is a duplicate within the column, until the set of shape types and colors is exhausted.
  4. Unique Icons – for all column cells, a specific “1” icon only if the cell value is unique within the column.

Steps to Add Status Icons

Start Visual Xtractor or Data Xtractor. Connect to a database. Create or design a SQL query. Run the query and check the results.

  1. Display and enable the Inline Chart query builder.
  2. Set any column to one of the Status Icons – Shape Icons,  Custom Icons, Duplicate Icons or Unique Icons settings.
  3. The cell text, if visible, will now eventually follow a specific meaningful icon.

Status Icons Demo Query

Look for the ready-to-use Status Icons generated query under the Queries > Demo Queries > Inline Charts > Images folder. Click on the “add demo queries” command link, if not there.

All Icons Status

Custom icons can be seen as an extension of the Status icons: while Status icons are limited to a builtin set of three kinds of shapes – circle, square and triangle – Custom icons can be anything from a manageable palette of markers. Standard icons are however transparent.

Remark also that Duplicate and Unique icons in the same field values are mutually exclusive: when one of them gets an icon, the other doesn’t. That’s because when one is a duplicate, it’s not unique. Or, if it’s unique, it cannot be duplicate.

Customize your Status Icons

  1. Hide the text in all cells (and icons will now display in the middle).
  2. Show standard icons as monochrome, with no colors.
  3. Change the marker palette for the Custom Icons (this is why they are called custom).

Custom Status Icons

Conclusion

  • Adding Status Icons in Data Xtractor or Visual Xtractor is fast and simple: select on any column one of the Status/Custom/Duplicate/Unique Icons settings, to eventually prefix cell’s text with meaningful small icons or image markers.
  • Hide text in all column cells, and display icons in the middle.
  • Change default marker images for the Custom Icons.