As per the previous chapter, the standard slicer visual can display the items of a source column as a list or as a dropdown. Additionally, if presented as a list, the slicer can optionally be displayed horizontally rather than vertically. The custom Chiclet Slicer, developed by Microsoft, allows report authors to take even greater control over the format of slicers to further improve the self-service experience in Power BI reports.
In the following example, a Chiclet Slicer has been formatted to display calendar months horizontally as three columns:
Additionally, a dark green color is defined as the Selected Color property under the Chiclets formatting card to clearly identify the current selections (May and June). The Padding and Outline Style properties, also available under the Chiclets card, are set to 1 and Square respectively, to obtain a simple and compact layout.
Like the slicer controls in Microsoft Excel, Chiclet Slicers also support cross highlighting. To enable cross highlighting, specify a measure which references a fact table as the Values input field to the Chiclet Slicer. For example, with the Internet Net Sales measure set as the Values input of the Chiclet Slicer, a user selection on a bar representing a product in a separate visual would update the Chiclet Slicer to indicate the calendar months without Internet Sales for the given product. The Disabled Color property can be set to control the formatting of these unrelated items.
Chiclet Slicers also support images. In the following example, one row is used to display four countries via their national flags:
For this visual, the Padding and Outline Style properties under the Chiclets formatting card are set to 2 and Cut respectively. Like the Calendar Month slicer, a dark green color is configured as the Selected Color property helping to identify the country or countries selected—Canada, in this example.
The Chiclet Slicer contains three input field wells—Category, Values, and Image. All three input field wells must have a value to display the images. The Category input contains the names of the items to be displayed within the Chiclets. The Image input takes a column with URL links corresponding to images for the given category values. In this example, the Sales Territory Country column is used as the Category input and the Internet Net Sales measure is used as the Values input to support cross highlighting. The Sales Territory URL column, which is set as an Image URL data category, is used as the Image input. For example, the following Sales Territory URL value is associated with the United States: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/u/us.gif.
