Excel live link for names

[elektron]

Hello,
I am using live links to show actual values form Excel in  e!Sankey Pro V3.2.2.558, that works fine.
Now I also want  to update a text/name of a flow in the legend. I think that is not possible directly.

As a workaround I can overlay a text label, which can be updated via Excel live link.

Is it possible with the V3-SDK to update the name in the legend?
Maybe the new Version V5 will support this (without SKD)?

[pbeilschmidt]

Hello elektron,

thanks for your post. It is an interesting suggestion, indeed. I am not a 100% sure why you would want to change the name of a flow as it appears in the legend, or why it would be different from the actual name of the flow. Could you maybe give an example? What is the idea behind this name change?

We have introduced a number of possibilites to modify the legend with version e!Sankey 4 back in 2016.

This does not allow to manipulate the name of a flow individually, but it allows to:
- sort legend entries
- hide legend entries (e.g. only feature most relevant flows)
- add basic unit, unit type or group name behind the legend entries

To achieve this, we had to split the legend properties dialog and it now has one page for general legend properties, and another one for the "content" of the legend (see screenshot). Is this something that would already help you to at least partially get what you are looking for?

To "overlay" the legend with live-linked text labels is probably feasable ... but it sounds a little bit, well.... fiddly (e.g. alignment etc.). This would basically mean rebuilding the legend from text labels, rather than using the existing legend element.

The Software Development Kit (SDK) won't help you much either, I am afraid.

Any possibility to just modify the name in the 'Entries' list?

Peter

[pbeilschmidt]

After posting this and reading your original post again, I have the feeling that your primary idea is to feed/update the list in the "Entries" window via Live Link to Excel rather than modifying the legend (your post title does not mention the legend at all). The name change in the legend would possibly only be a secondary effect then.

The idea to use the Live Link to Excel also for entries has been suggested to us several times before.

One use case would be that the actual names of the flows are not known beforehand, and one would use "generic name placeholders" which are then updated (for ecample [fruit1], [fruit2], [fruit3] in a fruit can production line would one time be replaced via Live Link to pears, cherries, peach, and another time to apples, pears, banana).
The other use case would be a multinational company that gets Excel data sheets from different countries, and would like to display the same Sankey diagram in different languages...

Let me know what your use case would be...

[elektron]

Hello Peter,

many thanks for your suggestions. My use case is the second one, updating the names of flows.
The legend should display the same names as the flows.

As an energy consultant we have several customers with similair processes. Therfore we want to use a template diagram and modify the flow names.
 
The new functions of e!Sankey 4 concerning the legend would be usefull for us,  e.g. to sort and hide entries.

Michael
 

[pbeilschmidt]

OK, Michael, I get your point.

Different clients means different naming conventions.
So while one client might call the flow "natural gas", another one calls it simply "gas", yet another "gas, from grid", and so on. Of course the client wants to see the individual name of the flow as he uses it, and not the generic overarching name you might have chosen. So there is a need to update not only the quantities, but also adapt the name.

I'll keep that in mind as we continue to develop e!Sankey further. Your feature suggestion is much welcomed.