#65 overlay the MajorGrid
Edward Tufte defines "chart junk" as ink on a graph that does not represent data. It is best to strive for maximum data denstity - the ratio of data ink to chart junk. In a column chart - bars going vertical - a horizontal grid is very helpful for interpreting the height of the bars. But it is chart junk to some extent and thus makes the chart visually cluttered. A great way to improve the situation is to make the horizontal grid the same color as the chart background (invisible) BUT display it on TOP of the bars. It will cut the bars and thus make it very easy to see how tall they are. For example, if the vertical axis is showing total minutes and the major grid is at hours, then a vertical bar with 3.5 sections is clearly 3.5 hours. If you do this, there is really no need for any vertical tick marks (chart junk), or the line representing the vertical axis (chart junk). All you need is the major labels along the vertical axis and the horizontal grid. One way to implement this is to have an option on the MajorGrid class called "IsOnTop", which is false by default. It should get drawn after the chart content.
Here is a pictue of what I'm talking about:
http://www.compassgr.com/sites/mark/index.htm
http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/2006/08/tufte-charts-in-excel/
For information on Tufte, see:
http://www.edwardtufte.com
http://www.washington.edu/computing/training/560/zz-tufte.html.