KronaExcelTemplate Error - Categories do not merge

[rjea]

Hi,

I ran into some trouble while trying to use the KronaExcelTemplate in Excel v15.32 (2017) on MacOS: the categories do not merge when generating the graph, e.g., using the granola example data without any editing, I get three "Fats" (and three "Carbohydrates") categories, each followed by the subsequent subcategories, rather than a single "Fats" category subdivided into Saturated, Unsaturated, and so on.

I can get the correct graph by importing the data from txt with KronaTools, but the "colouring" according to an additional variable is essential for my purpose. I have not been able to convert my data to xml so far, as I am not really familiar with the format.
Is it possible to fix the graph generation using KronaExcelTemplate and/or import score data from txt?
Ideally, I would like to have a single chart with several (approx. 10) "samples", each with an additional "score" colouring option - is it possible to do this without writing an xml file?

Thanks in advance

[ondovb]

This seems to be an issue with Excel Mac 2016 (v15.x). The next version of the template should solve this and also should allow more than two samples. Until then, using the template with Excel Mac 2011 would be an option if you have access to it. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to get scores into ktImportText, but this is something I have wanted to address too.

[ondovb]

The version available here should fix the category issue and also allows more than two samples. Let me know if this solves your issue, and if it does not cause any other problems I will make an official release.

[rjea]

Thanks a lot for the update! I will run a few tests and let you know if I run into any issues.

[rjea]

I did finally a few tests with the new excel template (in Excel Mac v15.32) and it appears to work fine, including up to 7 samples (maximum tested) and colouring by a continuous variable (percentages). The percentages for merged nodes appear to be correctly weighted by the corresponding counts.
I am just not entirely what the "Collapse" option is supposed to do, as it does not change anything when I select it. Maybe it just has to do with my particular taxonomic hierarchy, as terminal wedges are assigned to a number of taxonomic levels that varies between 1-11.

Thank you so much again for the update on the Excel template; I'm really glad that I can use Krona for this.

I have yet another question/suggestion: would it be possible to include several variables for the colouring option in the same chart? That is, to have a list of different variables to chose from, applied to the same sample.
For example: I'm currently preparing Krona charts as additional files for a manuscript (html files, not snapshots), and I will have to provide nearly 20 charts to display different features (in percentage) for the same count data. I'm essentially mapping a series of meta-data on a novel database, and it would be great if users could navigate the different features within the same chart.
It would probably be too late for my current work, but I think that this could be a very useful feature to add to Krona.

[ondovb]

Great, thanks for testing and reporting back.

"Collapse" is for redundant wedges (i.e. with only one child); it would make sense to hide this if not applicable.

A dropdown for coloring variables is a good idea, but I might not get to it for a while. A bit of an involved, but possible, workaround would be to normalize all the variables (e.g. so they all range from 0-1) and import them as different datasets with the same counts, using the dataset names as variable descriptions.

[rjea]

Great, I think that that might just do it for the time being! I should have thought of that.
Thanks a lot for the suggestions. And thanks for Krona!