Work in progress: rendering WSS lists to a VML based Gantt chart
It has been a long time since my last posting. It has been a busy period and the stuff I was working on wasn't suitable or ready enough to blog about. But I'm back now!
This post presents a sample solution for rendering a list of items with start dates and end dates into a Gantt chart format using only HTML and VML. VML is the vector based graphics language supported by MS Internet Explorer. I know: not cross-browser, but it suited my needs. Once SVG is well supported, minor changes would be necessary to port it to SVG.
I am working on a web part that can render the contents of a WSS list as a Gantt chart more or less like this (click the image for a real VML sample).
The part is not yet fully functional, but it will allow you to specify a list and view from your team site. Then by specifying which fields represent the start and end dates of tasks, the part has all necessary iformation for rendering the chart. The part that I haven't figured out yet is the grouping and nesting of tasks. As you can see in the sample, the rendering of hierarchical tasks is working, but the nasty part is to follow the groupings as specified in the WSS view.
Example: If you have a list with tasks, it should be possible to define a view that sorts the items and groups them first by project phase, then by assigned team member. The Gantt chart should be able to follow these groupings and display them in the chart. The grouping bar could then be used to toggle the visibility of underlying taks.
The part is not mature enough to post the code, but I will do so within a few weeks. I might even write an article about the inner workings.