How to hide/show a column in a basic column graph of highcharts?

Question

I\'m trying to show/hide a column (with all the associated points) in a graph of highcharts.

For instance, consider following graph: jsfiddle.

I want the use

Answer 1

To do this with a grouped bar chart, you will need to create a custom function that will

1) remove the data series from the chart

2) rebuild the data series with the clicked data points removed

3) re-add the series to the chart

and,

4) you will need to build some form of external control mimicking a legend, so that the user still has something to click in order to re-show the removed data. Otherwise, when you rescale the axis, you remove the label and the user can't get the data back.

It is not a trivial exercise, unfortunately.

the setData() function will handle 1 and 3: http://api.highcharts.com/highcharts#Series.setData%28%29

OTOH, if you want to do this with a standard (non-grouped, non-stacked) bar chart, you can simply make each bar a separate data series, and the built in Legend functionality will handle everything for you.

Answer 2

Here is the solution from Daker, with the jsfiddle.

html

<div id="container" style="height: 300px"></div>
<script src="http://code.highcharts.com/highcharts.src.js"></script>
<button id="b4">Hide third category</button>
<button id="b5">Show third category</button>

javascript

var point = {
x: null,
y: null
};

var chart = new Highcharts.Chart({

chart: {
    renderTo: 'container'
},

xAxis: {
    categories: ['Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec']
},

series: [{
    type: 'column',
    name: 'third',
    data: [95.6, 54.4, 29.9, 71.5, 106.4, 129.2, 144.0, 176.0, 135.6, 148.5, 216.4, 194.1],
}]
});
$('#b4').click(function () {
var no = 2; //third element
// removed march, hoping we'd only show 11 months...
chart.xAxis[0].setCategories(['Jan', 'Feb', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec'], false);
var data = [];
for (i = 0; i < chart.series[0].data.length; i++) {
    if (i < no) {
        data.push([chart.series[0].data[i].x, chart.series[0].data[i].y]);
    } else if (i === no) {
        point.x = chart.series[0].data[i].x;
        point.y = chart.series[0].data[i].y;
    } else if (i > no) {
        data.push([chart.series[0].data[i].x - 1, chart.series[0].data[i].y]);
    }
}
chart.series[0].setData(data);
});

$('#b5').click(function () {
var no = 2; //third element
var data = [];
for (i = 0; i < chart.series[0].data.length; i++) {
    if (i < no) {
        data.push([chart.series[0].data[i].x, chart.series[0].data[i].y]);
    } else if (i === no) {
        data.push([point.x, point.y]);
        data.push([chart.series[0].data[i].x + 1, chart.series[0].data[i].y]);
    } else if (i > no) {
        data.push([chart.series[0].data[i].x + 1, chart.series[0].data[i].y]);
    }
}
chart.xAxis[0].setCategories(['Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'May', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec']);
chart.series[0].setData(data);
});