#TweakThursday 10: Show URL on Hover

I saw this Viz on World War I in the Tableau forum and without a doubt, I nominated it for Viz of the Day by sending a message to public@tableau.com on 7/22. In the message, I didn't write anything but the link to the viz. On 7/25, it was selected as the Viz of the Day. Note that between 22 and 25, there was a weekend.

So, that's how good the viz is. I had nothing to add. The only concern I had was, the reference line will fall off the chart after 2018. The author Ryan Rowland replied that he will come up with a solution between now and 2018. I bet he will.

A few days ago, I felt that for an information viz, it would be really helpful to the viewers if we add some web extensions to it for people to further explore. A good viz which can only host some brief introduction after all, must serve as a springboard to more discovery on the topic. I would add a link from each battle to Google or Wikipedia, like what I did in this viz.

To my surprise, after click on the data marks, I found the links are there already in the tooltips. Ryan has thought about it already! Alas, viewers have to click or select the data marks to see the link.

Before Select

After Select

So here comes an obscure feature in Tableau regarding tooltips: Show Tooltips on Hover.

By turning it on, we can see the URL right away just by hovering, without click or select. Note that it is not the default setting. We have to turn it on manually. (Maybe I should send a request to make it the default. Or the text should be "Show URL/Link on hover"?)

Try this tweaked version to see the effect. This concludes the #TweakThursday.

(Refresh the page if you want to view the gif image multiple times. Or go to Tableau Public and click the button at the top-right corner.)

Jake and I collaborated on a dashboard. He told me that he learnt a way to create an in-place help page in Tableau. He first saw it at a conference somewhere and couldn't recall who the speaker was. So I am blogging here about it but the credit goes to somebody else. If anyone knows who the original creator is, leave a comment below.

The key idea is to float a semi transparent worksheet on top of the dashboard, where a help text box is strategically placed on top of each chart. This way, we can explain how to view each chart and what data points are important, etc. This worksheet is collapsible by a show/hide button.

Below I would like to show how this worksheet can be constructed.

1. Sheet with a single data mark.

Double click the empty space in Marks panel and add two single quotes. Make the null pill a text label. This creates a single null mark.
Set the view as "Entire View"

2. Create an show/hide button

Go to the target dashboard
Drag a floating vertical container to the dashboard, making it cover all the area of interest.
Drag the Single Null Mark sheet and drop it into the above container. Hide the sheet title.
Create an open/close button for the container and place the button at the top-right corner.

3. Add annotations

Format the sheet background opacity as 70% in the layout manager
Select area annotations and place them anywhere of interest.
Write help text and format it to highlight important messages.
The text can serve as functional guide and/or insight guide.

Here is an example. Feel free to download the workbook and explore. Click the "i" button at the top-right corner to view the in-place help.

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Vizible Difference

In search of data visualization excellence

1. Sheet with a single data mark.

2. Create an show/hide button

3. Add annotations

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