flot: Could not draw pie with labels contained inside canvas

Question

I'm trying to do a bit of charting and came across this weird error message. Here is an example of what works:

$.ajax({
    type: "GET",
    dataType: "json",
    url: "/data/active_projects_per_phase",
    success: function (result) {
        $.plot($("#active_per_phase"), result, {
            series: {
                pie: {
                    show: true,
                    label: {
                        show: true,
                        radius: 3 / 4,
                        formatter: function (label, series) {
                            return label + ': ' + series.data[0][1] + ' (' + Math.round(series.percent) + '%)';
                        },
                        background: {
                            opacity: 0.5
                        }
                    }

                }

            },
            legend: {
                show: false

            }
        });

    }
});

The url returns the following data:

[
  {
    "data": 24,
    "label": "\u0411\u0438\u0437\u043d\u0435\u0441-\u0438\u0434\u0435\u044f"
  },
  {
    "data": 31,
    "label": "\u041f\u043b\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0440\u043e\u0432\u0430\u043d\u0438\u0435"
  },
  {
    "data": 26,
    "label": "\u0418\u0441\u043f\u043e\u043b\u043d\u0435\u043d\u0438\u0435"
  },
  {
    "data": 1,
    "label": "\u0417\u0430\u043a\u0440\u044b\u0442\u0438\u0435"
  }
]

Yet it will not work with this data and display "Could not draw pie with labels contained inside canvas" error:

[
  {
    "data": 6,
    "label": "\u0417\u0430\u043a\u0440\u044b\u0442"
  },
  {
    "data": 11,
    "label": "\u041e\u0442\u043c\u0435\u043d\u0435\u043d"
  },
  {
    "data": 1,
    "label": "\u041e\u0441\u0442\u0430\u043d\u043e\u0432\u043b\u0435\u043d"
  },
  {
    "data": 5,
    "label": "\u041f\u0435\u0440\u0435\u043d\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d \u0432 \u0434\u0440\u0443\u0433\u043e\u0439 \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0435\u043a\u0442"
  },
  {
    "data": 4,
    "label": "\u041f\u0435\u0440\u0435\u043d\u0435\u0441\u0435\u043d \u0432 \u043f\u043e\u0434\u0434\u0435\u0440\u0436\u043a\u0443"
  }
]

What is it that I'm missing in chart setup to overcome this?

Answer 1

The pie functionality of flot has restrictions on the legend and labels. The code makes sure that the legend/labels stays within the boundaries of the canvas, and if it doesn't it fails as you have seen. Your options are:

1. Make your canvas bigger
2. Make your labels shorter
3. Use a legend outside of the canvas using the legend.container option to specify an outside div