ASP.NET chart control: pie chart and custom sized labels

Answer 1

You can do this by limiting the number of characters entered into the data source.

OR

In your SQL Procedure, you can add ellipses (or something to that effect) after a certain number of characters

Answer 2

Do it at the database layer in your SQL statement. If characters exceed a certain length (e.g. 15), return just first 15 characters.

Answer 3

I was hoping for a solution that would be specific to the ASP.NET charting controls.

Seeing no clear answer for the charting controls, it was time to move to the source data. I was hesitant to substring the names from the columns to a custom length because that sproc was being reused/consumed by other form elements on other pages - a gridview.

The solution was to create a NEW COLUMN called DisplayName on the resultset in the stored proc. Instead of modifying the existing, I simply included a new column:

SELECT
SomeName 
,COUNT(SomeName) AS SomeNumber
,SUBSTRING(SomeName,0,15) AS DisplayName

This isn't an expensive solution in terms of development, research, time, and processing cost, so it's a win. Most times the presentation tier should take care of these issues, but in this case, the faster solution works when there isn't a clear solution at the presentation tier.

Thanks to Russ and waqasahmed!