Choosel allows you to import data using comma separated value (CSV) files. To import a CSV file:
Choosel supports four data types within comma separated value (CSV) data. These are:
The CSV import routine automatically recognizes these data types based on the following rules:
Numeric values must be expressed as decimal numbers, containing one or more digits separated by a decimal point. E.g., 1.0, 4.726355.
Dates must be expressed in the formats dd/MM/yyyy or yyyy-MM-dd where dd is a two digit day form 1 to 31, MM a two digit month form 1 to 12 and yyyy a 4 digit year. These values must be separated by forward slashes (‘/’) for ‘dd/MM/yyyy’ and by dashes (‘-’) for ‘yyyy-MM-dd’. E.g., 23/09/2010 or 2010-09-23 define a date for the 23rd of September, 2010
Locations must be expressed as latitude/longitude pairs using decimal degrees as lat/lon, where lat and lon are both numeric values as described above. E.g., 48.5/110.24 describes a location at 48 degrees 30 minutes 0 seconds North and 110 degrees, 14 minutes, 24 seconds West. To express latitudes south of the equator or longitudes east of the prime meridian, use negative numbers.
To convert a latitude or longitude value expressed in degrees, minutes, and seconds to decimal degrees, divide the minutes value by 60 and add this to the degrees value, then divide the seconds value by 3600 and add this value to get the total. E.g., 110 degrees, 14 minutes, and 24 seconds becomes 110 + 14/60 + 24/3600 = 110.24
Any values that do not conform to the formatting described for numeric values, dates, or locations are considered to be unformatted text data.
To create a view:
Once you have created and populated one or more views with data, you can explore these data by mousing over data, creating Selections (selected sets of data elements) and by configuring the views. Moving the mouse over a data element in any view highlights that data element. If the element is visible in other views, it will also be highlighted in these views. See Working with Selections for more detail on how to create sets of selected data. See Configuring Views for information on how to customize each view.
Each view contains a configuration area that you can select by clicking on the double inverted triangle icon near the top right corner. This opens up a Mappings pane that contains Grouping and Label fields as well as additional view-specific fields as appropriate.
The Grouping field contains column names for all text fields from the data set used in this view. When you select one of these column names for a column in which there are repeated values the view will redisplay with the data elements grouped under each repeated value. For example, in a Bar Chart view that contains a country list with a column for Continent, grouping by continent will aggregate the individual country values and redisplay a bar for each continent. Selecting a grouping in one window will select the individual elements in the group if displayed in another window.
The Label field determines what text label is associated with the data displayed. For example, in the Bar Chart view of country data that contains country, capital, and continent, the bars can be labeled with country name, continent name, or capital name.
The Bar Chart view provides configurable Value fields for any numeric values found in the data set. Select the numeric field to display from a dropdown list of fields and specify how the numbers should be processed (as Sum, Count, Average, Minimum, or Maximum). Note that not all processing options are applicable to all data.
The Text view displays a tag cloud that can be configured by changing the numeric values that determine font size. Similar to the Value fields in the Bar Chart view, select the numeric field to display from a dropdown list of fields and specify how the numbers should be processed (as Sum, Count, Average, Minimum, or Maximum). Note that not all processing options are applicable to all data.
Selections are subsets of data elements created by clicking on data elements within a view. When the first element is selected, a new Selection is automatically created. Clicking on additional elements will add these to the selection. You can rename or remove selections by mousing over the selection. A dialog box will appear with a text field for the name of the selection and a link that allows you to remove the selection from the current view.
Once you have created a selection, you can use this selection in other views by dragging it to another view.