Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Is the custom header image useless, wasteful, and distracting? Not at all, and on the contrary
it both increases the visual appeal and augments the message of the Dashboard. It's a
com-
munication aid
.
This type of custom header image can be created with any vector graphics editor. I like to use
software programs like Inkscape and GIMP 2, which are free and open source. Other pro-
grams include Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, and even PowerPoint can be used to create
simple graphics like this.
It's helpful to learn how to make image backgrounds transparent, as Tableau now supports
transparency for Dashboard image objects, and a simple Google search on the topic will
yield helpful tutorials.
The image itself is shown in
Figure 14-14
. Once it's created using your editor of choice, you
can easily add it to your dashboard by dragging an Image object onto your Dashboard and
opening the file. You can give it a URL as we did in
Chapter 13
.
Figure 14-14. The custom header image file
Next, we'll consider how to embed a dynamic Google Maps window, the part of the Dash-
board in
Figure 14-11
that is shown in the bottom half.
Adding Google Maps to Dashboards
In general, it's possible to embed a live website in a Dashboard by dragging the Web Page
Dashboard object onto the canvas. We can have the web page itself be either static or dynam-
ic. If we simply enter a URL in the dialog box that appears when dropping the Web Page ob-
ject on the Dashboard, then that website will always appear, as shown in Figures
14-15
and
