Mavericking Time Axes Property Settings for Version 8.0

Introduction

What is “Mavericking”?

The subject of this article is “mavericking”. But, what is a maverick? In OnePager, the Glossary of Terms defines maverick time axis cells for example, as follows:

A time axis cell is said to be turned into a “Maverick” if the time axis cell has one or more of its default property settings manually changed (e.g. editing the “background color” of a time axis cell to red, when the default OnePager assigned background color is gray).

Time axis global property settings are initially established in OnePager Template Properties before a chart is created and these global property settings can be altered using the Chart Properties forms after the chart is created. That is, you always have the option to make global edits by altering time axis property settings in the Chart Properties form.

Mavericking can be applied to time axis cell properties created in the chart.

Unlike with task bars/milestone symbols and rows, swimlanes, and text columns, OnePager does not provide the capability to use conditional formatting rules to edit time axis cell properties based on imported source plan data.

Finally, you can maverick or manually edit time axis cell property settings in the chart using context menus and forms provided for these purposes.

What “Mavericking” Does Not Do!

You can maverick time axis cell property settings in the chart but these mavericked property settings are NEVER incorporated into the current Chart Properties form and they CANNOT become incorporated into a Template Properties form! Therefore, you should not rely on mavericking for making more than a handful of minor edits in the chart. Significant use of mavericking is inefficient and can end up taking more time in the long run.

Mavericking and Global Property Settings – The Hierarchy

When users apply formatting through a mixture of mavericking and global property settings, the following hierarchy applies:

1) Mavericking (takes precedence over all other formatting)

2) Global property settings (can be overridden by mavericking)

OnePager DOES NOT provide conditional formatting rules for time axis cells. The discussion above is provided to completely describe the concepts involved.

The hierarchy becomes important when the editing features are used in combination and when you desire to restore property settings back to their default property setting values. So before proceeding into the details, let’s review the editing features you have available in OnePager.

OnePager Template Properties Forms

OnePager is shipped to customers with a set of Templates that can be used to produce different styles of OnePager charts. These Templates define the global default property settings for time axis cells that initially appear in your chart. Settings from any Template can be reviewed in the Template Properties form prior to chart creation. The illustration below shows the Time Axis tab for the Single Project Gantt View – Detailed Template:

Template Properties Form’s Time Axis Tab

You can certainly, before the chart is created, access one or more of the provided Templates, make changes to their property settings as determined by your needs, and save the altered Template for use later when creating OnePager charts. When saved in a Template, these settings become global from the perspective of any charts subsequently created from the Template.

OnePager Chart Properties Forms

You have the option to make global, chart level, edits to the default property settings after the chart is created. By accessing the Chart Properties form you can edit default time axis cell property settings at the Time Axis tab. Edits made to any property settings in any tab of the Chart Properties form ONLY CHANGE THE CURRENT chart. The edits do not automatically change the Template that was originally used to create the chart.

The Chart Properties form’s Time Axis tab is shown below:

Chart Properties Form’s Time Axis Tab

When a chart is created, the time axis cell property settings are taken from the current Template and applied to the Chart Properties form. In the Chart Editor, the Chart Properties form is accessible at the OnePager Home ribbon tool bar tab shown below:

If you are satisfied with the “out-of-the-box” chart, there is no need to access the Chart Properties form and make chart level global edits to any property settings. On the other hand, if you want to make chart level edits, that is, you want to edit one or more of the time axis cell’s property settings, access the Chart Properties form at the Time Axis tab and use the controls to make the edits. When you are finished, click the OK button on the Chart Properties form and your chart level global edits are immediately applied to the chart.

Since the process described above has the potential to edits the appearance of several or all time axis cells in the chart, these edits are NOT considered mavericks.

Manually Changing Time Axis Property Settings

Manual edits made to one or a more specific time axis cells in the chart by editing specific property settings DOES reclassify the specific time axis cell as a maverick. Examples are provided in sections that follow.

For more information on this relationship, please see the click the link in the table below:

Related Links

Overview

This article covers the subject of manually mavericking time axis cell property settings in the chart in the following two sections:

1) Manually Mavericking Time Axis Cell Settings

2) Manually Mavericking Time Axis Level Corner Settings

The final section is a short summary followed by a table of Related Links to this subject in the OnePager Wiki and elsewhere.

Manually Mavericking Time Axis Cell Settings

Suppose we create a chart that has a focus on the time axis with text columns showing each task bar’s Start and Finish dates as shown below:

This chart was created using the standard Single Project Gantt – Detailed Template.

The OnePager Chart Editor provides controls for you to select a time axis cells with a right-click which accesses a context menu showing commands that help you to specifically edit the time axis cells selected. The details for using these features are included in articles that are referenced in the Related Links section at the end of this article.

For example, suppose you want to edit the background color of the Year 2024 time axis cell to the color Yellow. You can accomplish this by right-clicking the Year 2024 time axis cell to access its context menu.

The context menu has five (5) commands: (1) Hide cell, (2) Format cell, (3) Unstretch all cells, (4) Time-axis properties…, and (5) Insert curtain. You can use the Hide cell, Format cell…, and Insert curtain to maverick the properties of a time axis cell. The Unstretch all cells command is an un-maverick command in that it restores all previously stretched time axis cells (mavericked time axis cells) to their original timespan width. The Time-axis properties… command is a command for accessing the Chart Properties form’s Time Axis tab where you have the controls to make global edits to the time axis portion of the chart. The Insert curtain command places a curtain in the timespan of the selected time axis cell and records the curtain’s presence the Curtains and Timespans grid of the Chart Properties form’s Time Axis tab’s Format sub-tab. For our purposes here the discussion below does not include the Unstretch all cells command as it does not cause mavericks to be created.

All of these commands are explained in detail in other articles with links provided in the Related Links section at the end of this article.

Using the Hide Cell Command

The Hide cell command has a great impact on the chart. When a time axis cell is selected, the context menu accessed, and the Hide cell command clicked, not only does the selected time axis cell become hidden but the entire timeline interval in the chart area represented by that selected time axis cell is hidden. The two illustrations below show the impact on the chart when the Year 2024 time axis cell is hidden:

Chart with Year 2024 Time Axis Cell Selected

Chart with Year 2024Time Axis Cell Hidden

Since the timespan in the chart is mavericked, an entry is made in Curtains and Timespans grid of the Chart Properties form’s Time Axis tab’s Format sub-tab shown below:

Hidden timespans (mavericked timespans) can be unhidden by accessing the Chart Properties form from the OnePager Home tool bar tab, navigating to the Time Axis tab and the Format sub-tab containing the Curtains and Timespans grid entry for the hidden timespan and clicking the Show checkbox to ON. Taking these action steps restores the chart to its original contents. An alternative method is to use the Delete Timespan button to remove a selected timespan from the Curtains and Timespans grid

Using the Format Cell… Command

For our example, the Format cell… command is of interest here because clicking the Format cell… command accesses the Time Axis Cell Properties form as shown below:

Using the Time Axis Cell Properties Form

The Time Axis Cell Properties form shown above allows you to make individual time axis cell property setting edits to the selected time axis cell or cells. Such edits make the selected time axis cell or cells into mavericks.

For this simple example, suppose we need to edit the Color of the selected time axis cell to highlight it for emphasis in a planned team schedule conversation. To do this, click on the Color window’s dropdown arrow to access the standard OnePager Color Chooser form as shown below and click the Yellow Color button:

When you click the Yellow Color button in the Color Chooser form, the Yellow Color is placed in the Time Axis Cell Properties form’s Color window and the Color Chooser form is closed. Clicking the OK button on the Time Axis Cell Properties form applies the maverick Yellow Color to the selected time axis cell as shown below:

You have the option to maverick all the enabled properties in the Time Axis Cell Properties form as shown in the example above. You also have the option to use the various time axis cell selection techniques to select multiple cells in a single time axis or in multiple time axes, perform a right-click on any of the selected time axis cells to access the context menu, and use the controls in the context menu to maverick any of the available properties in the selected time axis cells.

Restoring Time Axis Cell Global Properties

You can restore any mavericked time axis cell property to its global value by accessing the Time Axis Cell Properties form and clicking the Use default properties button shown here:

Clicking the Use default properties button restores the selected time axis cell to the properties setting contained in the Chart Properties form.

Using the Time-Axis Properties… Command

The Time-axis properties… command can give you immediate access to the Chart Properties form’s Time Axis tab. With this access you can make global changes to time axis properties at any of the five (5) sub-tabs on the tab. It is convenient to have access to the Chart Properties form’s Time Axis tab when you want to unhide one or more hidden time axis cells by going to the Curtains and Timespans grid to unhide time axis cells previously hidden.

Using the Insert Curtain Command

The Insert curtain command places a curtain with default curtain properties in the chart area immediately below the selected time axis cell in the chart area. The curtain spans the same timespan as the selected time axis cell and an entry is made for the inserted curtain in the Curtains and Timespans grid at the Format sub-tab of the Time Axis tab in the Chart Properties form as shown in the two illustrations below where the Year 2024 timespan was selected:

Inserted Curtain at Year 2024 Time Axis Cell

Curtain and Timespans Grid Entry for Inserted Year 2024 Time Axis Cell Curtain

Once an inserted curtain is placed in the chart area its properties can be managed and edited on a global level or by selecting the desired inserted curtain with a right-click in its position in the chart area to access its context menu and context menu commands.

For more information on curtains, please see the related article in the links provided in the Related Links section at the end of this article.

Should you want to remove the Inserted curtain, you may do so in the Curtains and Timespans grid shown above by either unchecking the On checkbox to OFF for the selected curtain or by selecting the inserted curtain entry in the grid shown above and clicking the Delete Curtain button also shown in the above illustration.

Manually Mavericking Time Axis Level Corner Settings

The Corner serves several purposes. It can be used to show Swimlane header and Text Column header labels, Time Axis Level (Unit) labels, or it can be used to put in label text of your choosing. The Corner options are controls in the Chart Properties form’s Main tab as shown here:

The illustration above shows that the Time-unit (level) labels option is selected and accordingly, the Corner for the chart looks like this:

Default Corner properties are set by OnePager and mirror those property settings when the Corner is displaying Time Axis headings. However, you have the capability to edit Corner property settings in any of the three (3) Corner configurations by accessing the Edit corner properties form when you right-click in the desired Time-unit (level) corner cell as shown below:

The Edit corner properties form shown above provides you with controls to change the Time-unit cell’s Text, Font, text horizontal/vertical Alignments, Background color, and Rotation. Making any edits in the Edit corner properties form mavericks the Time-unit cell. There is no Use Format Default option provided for Corner properties.

Summary

Time axis cell property settings are established in the Template and carried into the chart in the Chart Properties form at the Time Axis tab. You can maverick certain property setting of time axis cells by right-clicking the selected time axis cell to access its context menu and commands. Context menu commands provide editing features and access to the Time Axis Cell Properties form where you can edit time axis cell property settings. You have the capability to restore global property settings by clicking the Use default properties button in the Time Axis Cell Properties form. You can also edit the properties of time axis levels in the Corner when the Corner is used to display Time axis units.

Creating and Managing Curtains	Modifying the Time Axis (Portal)
Showing Different Units of Time	Changing the Time Axis Background Color and Fill Pattern
Labeling Time Axis Levels	Changing the Time Axis Borders
Labeling the Corner	Changing the Chart’s Start/Finish Dates
Showing and Hiding Time Axis Levels and Cells	Switching Time Axis Levels
The Non-Linear Time Axis Feature	Editing Time Axes with the Chart Properties Form
Manual Editing the Time Axis	Creating, Editing, and Managing Time Axis Daily Curtains
Managing Inserted Curtains	Creating and Managing Time Axis Milestones with OnePager