Writing a custom text at an arbitrary position in a chart - dynamics-crm-2011

Question

I've created a nice chart but there's one thing missing. I'd like to be able to set a text somewhere in it. The optimal solution would be e.g. the current date smacked in huge yellow letters right in the middle of my graph.
I've googled for such a thing but none of the links (proof that I've googled #1, proof that I've googled #2) gave any hints on whether it's possible or not. In fact, the mock-up image in the second link would be something for me if the descriptions and arrows weren't drawn afterwards in an image processor.
NB. It's not a report at all. It's just a chart - a single, lonely chart - that displays values of a couple of series. I get to control the appearance, the legend etc. However, I'd like to put a floating text object (DIV formatable by CSS would be perfect), sprite, overlay, call it whatever you'd like, that will get its value from a given field (e.g. the current date).
And if I can position it freely anywhere over the graph, that'd be even "perfecter" but I'd settle for placement on form "top-right" or such. Alternatively, if there's an option to combine two "views" on top of each other or anything like that (I'm beating around the bushes with this).
Is that achievable and if so how?

Answer 1

Right, I've had a play, a good dig around with the SDK, a bit of a google and this is the best I can come up with.
I know how to place text at arbitary positions on the chart, but only with static text, e.g. I don't know how to bind the text dynamically to anything - I suspect this is more to do with CRM than Charts, I couldnt find much documentation for CRM and Charts.
So I've found that TextAnnotation allow you to bascially place text wherever you like. This is contained within theAnnotations collections.
For example:
<Chart>
...
<Annotations>
<TextAnnotation Text="This is an annotation" Name="TextAnnotation1" X="20" Y="50">
</TextAnnotation>
</Annotations>
...
</Chart>
So important to note that the position of the TextAnnotation is relative, e.g. the annotation will appear 20% of the width of the chart from the left. 0,0 is the top left corner. The MSDN has some more detail on positioning.
So I can create a chart like this:
HELLO WORLD! is the annotation.
Using this xml:
<Chart Palette="None" PaletteCustomColors="55,118,193; 197,56,52; 149,189,66; 117,82,160; 49,171,204; 255,136,35; 97,142,206; 209,98,96; 168,203,104; 142,116,178; 93,186,215; 255,155,83">
<Series>
<Series ShadowOffset="0" IsValueShownAsLabel="True" Font="{0}, 9.5px" LabelForeColor="59, 59, 59" CustomProperties="PieLabelStyle=Inside, PieDrawingStyle=Default" ChartType="pie">
<SmartLabelStyle Enabled="True" />
</Series>
</Series>
<ChartAreas>
<ChartArea>
<Area3DStyle Enable3D="false" />
</ChartArea>
</ChartAreas>
<Legends>
<Legend Alignment="Center" LegendStyle="Table" Docking="right" IsEquallySpacedItems="True" Font="{0}, 11px" ShadowColor="0, 0, 0, 0" ForeColor="59, 59, 59" />
</Legends>
<Titles>
<Title Alignment="TopLeft" DockingOffset="-3" Font="{0}, 13px" ForeColor="0, 0, 0"></Title>
</Titles>
<Annotations>
<TextAnnotation Text="HELLO WORLD!" Font="Stencil, 15.75pt, style=Bold, Italic, GdiCharSet=0" Name="TextAnnotation1" X="20" Y="50" ForeColor="Orange">
</TextAnnotation>
</Annotations>
</Chart>
If that doesnt achieve your requirements I would suggest having a look at an SSRS report or some other custom piece IFramed into the dashboard.

Answer 2

You might want to check this link where they put descriptive text on a map. I haven't got that to work (didn't try very hard, either) but it's pretty easy to set just some text instead of a graph by the following code.
<visualization>
<primaryentitytypecode>blobb</primaryentitytypecode>
<name>My custom name</name>
<webresourcename>MyCustomHttpFile</webresourcename>
</visualization>
I would be nice indeed to surprise a customer with a flash text sometimes so the idea is worth exploring. Strangely, I haven't found any good guide on how to do that.