Glossary

Animation

An option for including motion when a chart is first drawn or redrawn after modification. Read more at Animation.

Annotations

Static labels for data points in a chart. annotation is a column role available to DataTable and DataView classes, not to be confused with Annotation Charts.

Axis

A reference line in a chart indicating the measurement of coordinates. In Google Charts, the two main axes are categorized as either:

horizontal vs. vertical
domain vs. target

Google Charts does not call them "x" and "y" axes because this would be ambiguous: Google Charts allows the user to break the traditional association between the "axis showing domain values" and the "horizontal axis," and it would not be clear which one "x axis" describes. For example, you can flip the orientation of a chart to show the domain variables on the vertical axis.

Callback

A piece of executable code that is passed as an argument to a second piece of code, which is expected to "call back," or execute, the first piece of code at a later time. In Google Charts, callbacks are commonly used with library loaders and event handlers. Example: "Set a callback to run when the Google Charts library is loaded."

Chart Type

A combination of data representation, appearance, and options that is implemented as a JavaScript object. Examples of chart types include Pie Charts and Bubble Charts. See the Charts Gallery for a full list.

ChartEditor

The user interface for editing Google Charts on the fly, which you can include in any web page. Read more at ChartEditor.

ChartWrapper

A JavaScript class that wraps your chart and can handle all loading, drawing, and queries against Datasources for your chart. ChartWrappers are required when using Dashboards and ChartEditor. Read more at ChartWrapper.

Column Role

A property of a column in a DataTable that describes its purpose. For example, the tooltip column role is assigned to columns that store tooltip text. Read more at What roles are available? and


 getColumnRole

Column Type

The data type assigned to a column in a DataTable. Column types can be one of the following:

string
number
boolean
date
datetime
timeofday

Continuous

Having a smooth progression of consecutive values. Used to describe an axis where a variable can take on any value between two given values, as opposed to a discrete axis. Read more at Discrete vs Continuous. Example: "The major axis of a chart can be either discrete or continuous."

Control

A user interface widget on a dashboard, such as sliders or autocompleters, which allows the viewer to alter the data or charts that are part of a dashboard. Example: "This dashboard contains a control that lets you select an option from a drop-down menu." Read more at Controls and Dashboards.

Core Charts

The most popular chart types in Google Charts. You can load all core charts simultaneously by using the corechart package; read more at Basic Library Loading. The core chart types are:

Dashboard

A visual display that combines chart and control instances, typically with at least one chart and one control. If a dashboard contains multiple charts, they must all have the same data source. Read more at Controls and Dashboards.

DataTable

A JavaScript class that represents a two-dimensional, mutable table of values. Read more at DataTable Class.

DataView

A JavaScript class that is derived from a DataTable. A DataView can serve as a data source for Google Charts, but unlike a DataTable, it is read-only. A DataView auto-updates when the underlying DataTable is changed, with some exceptions. Read more at DataView Class.

Discrete

Referring to a set of values that are not based a continuous value system. In the context of Google Charts, "discrete" can describe data types or axes. Read more about discrete axes at Discrete vs Continuous." Example: "A list of countries should be stored as a column with a discrete data type."

Domain

The set of all possible inputs which a function or relation can take. If multiple data series are shown in a chart, it is possible for one domain value to have multiple target values. Example: "For the domain value '3', this data series has value '5'."

Event

Pre-defined actions that a Google Chart can register, such as a user clicking a button. The page for each chart type contains an Events section (example here) listing the events supported by that chart type, such as ready, select and onmouseover. Example: "When the user clicks 'I want apples,' this throws a userWantsApples event." Read more at Handling Events.

Formatter

Determines how the data in a DataTable column is displayed without affecting the underlying values. Google Charts provides a pre-defined list of formatters and formatter options. For example, you can use the prefix option of the NumberFormat formatter to display the value "1000" as "$1000." Read more at Formatters.

Google Sheets

Google Sheets allows users to create, update, modify, and share spreadsheets online. Google Sheets are a common data source for Google Charts. Read more at the Google Charts page on Google Sheets. You can create and manage Google Sheets from Google Drive.

Interval

An optional column role which contains additional target values for given domain values in a data series. For example, you can store data about confidence intervals in an interval column in order to display it as part of a bar chart. Intervals are most commonly displayed in line, scatter, and bar charts. Google Charts offers several styles for displaying intervals; read more at Intervals.

Legend

An area within a chart which lists the label and visual appearance of all data series in a chart, and/or the visual sub-components of a single data series in a chart. For example, in a pie chart which contains only one data series, the legend will contain the label and color corresponding to each "slice" of the pie.

Library Loader

The JavaScript method google.charts.load, which loads the Google Charts API library. Loading the library is necessary whenever you build a web page that uses Google Charts. Read more at Load the Libraries.

Method

A procedure in object-oriented programming (OOP) that is associated with an object class. Example: "If you write a chart library, your Chart object must expose a draw() method.

Query

A request for information issued against a database. Google Charts supports Data Queries, which are SQL-like queries used to query sources such as Google Sheets. Queries must be written using the Google Visualization API Query Language.

Series

A data column in a DataTable or DataView, where each value corresponds one-to-one with a domain value from the domain column. A series may have one or more associated columns which have different column roles, e.g. annotation or style roles. Example: "The following chart demonstrates a chart with two series, one in dark blue, one in light blue."

Bar chart showing two series: Cats and Dogs.

Stacking

A chart option for displaying multiple data series where each series is graphed relative to the preceding series by adding up all previous series values for a given domain value. This creates the visual effect of the series being "stacked" on top of each other. For an example, see Area Chart: Stacking Areas. Stacking is available for the following chart types by setting the isStacked option to true:

Style

A column role which uses specific properties to determine the appearance of a series. Properties include color, opacity, stroke-width, and stroke-color. Read more about the style column role in What Roles are Available?

The small boxes that pop up when your cursor hovers over certain chart components. Tooltip content can be either automatically generated from the underlying series data or stored in a column with the tooltip column role. Read more at Tooltips.

Trendline

A line superimposed on a chart that reveals the overall direction, or "trend," of the data. Read more at Trendlines.