Improve dashboard charts

[rhoerr]

Description (*)

Following magento/magento2#21599, Magento recently switched from the deprecated Google Charts API to generating static chart images via image-charts.com (magento/magento2@f92c8fd).

That being said, the new charts are not in any way dynamic, and do not provide a user experience befitting an enterprise software package, for reasons including unclear labels, lack of gridlines, pixelation, branding, and poor styling.

For example, this is the current dashboard chart on a site running 2.3.2 Commerce:

Expected behavior (*)

Use a modern JavaScript chart library to build the dashboard charts on the client side.

Benefits

Using a client-side JS chart library would provide a far superior user experience than the current static images, in design, interactivity (tooltips), and usefulness.

Doing so would also reducing any possible security or privacy concerns from the current approach, which involves sending data to or including a third-party-hosted resource or API for the same purpose. With a client-side library responsible for rendering the data, no data would leave the premises, and no external resources would be added in to the sensitive admin panel area.

Additional information

There are numerous open-source JS chart libraries that would fit the purpose, including https://github.com/chartjs/Chart.js and https://github.com/flot/flot (both licensed MIT). My inclination would be Chart.js, given its more active contributor base, better documentation, and simple out-of-box responsive support.

In the process, the charts should also be switched from line to bar-type, to better reflect the nature of the underlying data (which is discrete sales figures, not continuous).

After integrating such a library, further improvements would be possible in the areas of changing timescale without reload; breaking down data by store; and more.

[m2-assistant]

Hi @rhoerr. Thank you for your report.
To help us process this issue please make sure that you provided the following information:

• Summary of the issue
• Information on your environment
• Steps to reproduce
• Expected and actual results

Please make sure that the issue is reproducible on the vanilla Magento instance following Steps to reproduce. To deploy vanilla Magento instance on our environment, please, add a comment to the issue:

@magento give me 2.3-develop instance - upcoming 2.3.x release

For more details, please, review the Magento Contributor Assistant documentation.

@rhoerr do you confirm that you were able to reproduce the issue on vanilla Magento instance following steps to reproduce?

• yes
• no

---

• Join Magento Community Engineering Slack and ask your questions in #github channel.

[rhoerr]

I'm interested in contributing to this. I'm opening the issue before starting to clear the idea and approach per the contribution guide ("please open an issue and discuss it with us first").

I expect integration to be relatively limited in scope, not extending much beyond the existing Graph block and template and added library files. My concerns are localization (dates, times, currencies) and testing. Localization is solvable given time. Testing isn't something I have experience with as of yet (MFTF or otherwise).

[brendanfalkowski]

+1 for Chart.js — we use it for customer-facing dashboards in a B2B context. It's flexible and has no dependencies.

[sedax90]

+1, image chart is horrible and it doesn't make sense to use it when there are clearly better libraries

[m2-assistant]

Hi @sdzhepa. Thank you for working on this issue.
In order to make sure that issue has enough information and ready for development, please read and check the following instruction: 👇

• 1. Verify that issue has all the required information. (Preconditions, Steps to reproduce, Expected result, Actual result).

  Details

  If the issue has a valid description, the label Issue: Format is valid will be added to the issue automatically. Please, edit issue description if needed, until label Issue: Format is valid appears.

• 2. Verify that issue has a meaningful description and provides enough information to reproduce the issue. If the report is valid, add Issue: Clear Description label to the issue by yourself.

• 3. Add Component: XXXXX label(s) to the ticket, indicating the components it may be related to.

• 4. Verify that the issue is reproducible on 2.3-develop branch

  Details

  - Add the comment @magento give me 2.3-develop instance to deploy test instance on Magento infrastructure.
  - If the issue is reproducible on 2.3-develop branch, please, add the label Reproduced on 2.3.x.
  - If the issue is not reproducible, add your comment that issue is not reproducible and close the issue and stop verification process here!

• 5. Verify that the issue is reproducible on 2.2-develop branch.

  Details

  - Add the comment @magento give me 2.2-develop instance to deploy test instance on Magento infrastructure.
  - If the issue is reproducible on 2.2-develop branch, please add the label Reproduced on 2.2.x

• 6. Add label Issue: Confirmed once verification is complete.

• 7. Make sure that automatic system confirms that report has been added to the backlog.

[shikhamis11]

@sdzhepa please check can we move this to Magento Feature request.

[sdzhepa]

Hello @rhoerr and @shikhamis11

Thank you for collaboration!

Moved this issue to the Magento Feature Requests repository

[ihor-sviziev]

@rhoerr
+1 for https://github.com/chartjs/Chart.js

Current charts are really terrible, I think no one will complain about improving existing chart and making them better and even interactive.

Would like to see such contribution from you 👍

[mortenbirkelund]

+1 for changing the default chart to give a better user experience.

[Bartlomiejsz]

@rhoerr @ihor-sviziev I'm working on Chart.js solution :) (not able to assign ticket to me here)
If there are any additional features that might be part of it besides better look and interactivity would be great to know!

[Bartlomiejsz]

[rhoerr]

Sounds good. I started an implementation but ran into other commitments, didn't get far. Looks like you have good progress!