Let’s check today the Legend class that compounds the Legends collection available on the Microsoft Chart control.

The idea of the legend is to provide information about a data series or fixed texts and built-in keywords that allow you retrieve information about the series values.

You may have unlimited legends on your chart and display them as a row, a column or a table. The legends accept custom positioning and docking inside or outside the chart area and also have an interactive functionality where you can display a checkbox to help you display / hide a data series.

Let´s check the main properties of the legends and some examples:

Properties

The following properties are available under a Legend object;

• StringAlignment Alignment: Gets or sets the alignment of the legend;
• int AutoFitMinFontSize: Gets or sets the minimum font size that can be used by the autofitting algorithm for the legend text;
• Color BackColor: Gets or sets the background color of a legend;
• GradientStyle BackGradientStyle: Gets or sets the orientation for the background gradient of a legend. If set to None, a gradient is not used;
• ChartHatchStyle BackHatchStyle: Gets or sets the hatching style of a legend;
• string BackImage: Gets or sets the background image of a legend;
• ChartImageAlignmentStyle BackImageAlignment: Gets or sets the background image alignment when the drawing mode is “unscaled”;
• Color BackImageTransparentColor: Gets or sets the color that will be replaced with a transparent color when the background image is drawn;
• ChartImageWrapMode BackImageWrapMode: Gets or sets the legend background image drawing mode;
• Color BackSecondaryColor: Gets or sets the secondary color of a legend background;
• Color BorderColor: Gets or sets the border color of a legend;
• ChartDashStyle BorderDashStyle: Gets or sets the border style of a legend such as solid, dot, dash and so on;
• int BorderWidth: Gets or sets the border width of a legend;
• LegendCellColumnCollection CellColumns: Read-only property that retrieves a collection of LegendCellColumn objects;
• LegendItemsCollection CustomItems: Read-only property that retrieves a collection of legend items used for custom legends;
• string DockedToChartArea: Gets or sets the name of the chart area where the legend will be docked;
• Docking Docking: Gets or sets a value that specifies where the legend is docked;
• bool Enabled: Gets or sets a flag that specifies whether the legend is enabled or not;
• Font Font: Gets or sets the font that is used for the legend;
• Color ForeColor: Gets or sets the color of the legend text;
• LegendSeparatorStyle HeaderSeparator: Gets or sets the visual separator type for the legend header;
• Color HeaderSeparatorColor: Gets or sets the color of the separator for the legend header;
• string InsideChartArea: Gets or sets the name of the chart area in which the legend belongs to;
• bool InterlacedRows: Gets or sets a flag that indicates if legend rows will be drawn with interlaced background color;
• Color InterlacedRowsColor: Gets or sets the background color of the legend’s interlaced rows;
• bool IsDockedInsideChartArea: Gets or sets a flag that indicates whether the legend is docked inside or outside the chart area;
• bool IsEquallySpacedItems: Gets or sets a flag that indicates whether all legend items are equally spaced;
• bool IsTextAutoFit: Gets or sets a flag that specified whether the text is adjusted automatically to fit;
• LegendSeparatorStyle ItemColumnSeparator: Gets or sets the visual separator type for the legend table columns;
• Color ItemColumnSeparatorColor: Gets or sets the color of the legend table column separator;
• int ItemColumnSpacing: Gets or sets the legend table column spacing;
• LegendItemOrder LegendItemOrder: Gets or sets the order in which the legend items are displayed. It may be in the same order than the values are added, the reverse order or automatically;
• LegendStyle LegendStyle: Gets or sets the style of the legend;
• float MaximumAutoSize: Gets or sets the maximum legend size (percentage of the chart area);
• string Name: Gets or sets the name of the legend;
• ElementPosition Position: Gets or sets the ElementPosition object, which can be used to get or set the position of the legend;
• Color ShadowColor: Gets or sets the shadow color of the legend;
• int ShadowOffset: Gets or sets the shadow offset, in pixels, of the legend;
• LegendTableStyle TableStyle: Gets or sets the legend table style;
• int TextWrapThreshold: Gets or sets the number of characters that can be sequentially displayed in the legend before the text is wrapped;
• string Title: Gets or sets the text of the legend title;
• StringAlignment TitleAlignment: Gets or sets the alignment of the legend title;
• Color TitleBackColor: Gets or sets the background color of the legend title;
• Font TitleFont: Gets or sets the font for the legend title;
• Color TitleForeColor: Gets or sets the text color of the legend title;
• LegendSeparatorStyle TitleSeparator: Gets or sets the visual separator type for the legend title;
• Color TitleSeparatorColor: Gets or sets the color of the legend title separator.

Examples

The first example displays a chart with two data series and a simple legend displayed with the LegendStyle property set as a row.

Picture 1 - A simple legend that displays the series name.

The next picture displays a pie chart with a legend displayed as a row with the items being displayed. The legend contains a title, the Alignment property is set as Center and the Docking property is set as Bottom.

Picture 2 - A pie chart displaying points name.