The ChartDirector API is extended for generating image maps for all charts types. These image maps are ideal for providing "drill-down" capabilities on the charts. For example, in a bar chart, the image map can distinguish which bar segment the user has clicked. This allows the web server to perform different actions based on what bar segment the user has clicked.

ChartDirector can even generate image maps for legend keys, custom text box and labels, so you can add custom buttons or hypertext links on the charts.

The line chart and the associated legend box have been enhanced to support "data symbols". A "data symbol" is an image that is drawn to denote the data points. Usually, it is a small image such as a square, a diamond shape, a cross shape, etc.

ChartDirector supports using built-in scalable symbols, loading symbols from image files, or generating symbols on the fly using the DrawArea object.

A multi-color bar chart is a bar chart where each bar has a different color. In previous versions of ChartDirector, each data set can have a different color, but bars within the same data set must have the same color. In a multi-color bar chart, the bars can have different colors even there is only one data set.

In previous versions of ChartDirector, if you draw a bar chart in 3D, the bars will look like a tall box. ChartDirector now supports an alternative 3D border effect, in which the bars will look like "raised" or "depressed" from the background (like a push-button). Even more, this 3D border effect is supported for the entire chart background, title boxes and custom text boxes.

In previous versions of ChartDirector, only bar charts can have data labels on the bars. This has been extended so that line charts can also have data labels.

ChartDirector now supports dash lines, where the dash patterns are user definable.

ChartDirector now supports using a bitmap pattern as a color to fill an area. The bitmap pattern can be defined in the code as an array of colors, or loaded from an image file.

ChartDirector now supports multi-segment gradient colors. Innovative use of gradient colors can produce many special effects, such as making something shiny or metal like. ChartDirector includes a number of pre-defined metal-like gradient colors - gold, silver, red metallic, green metallic and blue metallic.

In previous versions of ChartDirector, only the y-axis support marks and zones, that is, marks and zones are horizontal. This has been extended to the x-axis, so marks and zones can also be vertical.

In previous versions of ChartDirector, mark lines are always drawn at the top of the chart. This has been extended so that the mark lines can be drawn at the top or at the bottom (like a grid line).

The grid line width is now configurable in ChartDirector.

ChartDirector allows custom shapes to be added to the chart using the DrawArea object. In previous versions of ChartDirector, it is only possible to use the DrawArea object after "makeChart". Therefore, the custom shapes are always at the top of the chart.

This has now been extended so that it is possible to draw custom shapes before or after "makeChart". If the custom shapes are drawn before "makeChart", they will become part of the chart background.

The ChartDirector API has been extended to allow changing the fill colors and edge colors of individual sectors in a pie chart. For example, it is now possible to draw sectors different edge colors.

ChartDirector now includes a utility function to read the database records from a Microsoft ADO RecordSet object into arrays. This allows easier integration of ChartDirector with Microsoft ADO. (This feature is available on the ASP/COM/VB/VBScript/JScript Edition of ChartDirector only.)

ChartDirector is designed to be compatibility with the latest version of all supported programming languages as of the release date. Please refer to ChartDirector documentation for details.

ChartDirector Ver 2.0 is designed to be compatible with all previous versions of ChartDirector.

All source code should run without modification, and they should produce the same chart.

For the C++ Edition of ChartDirector, although the C++ source code does not need to be modified, they have to be recompiled and linked to the new ChartDirector library "chartdir20.dll". If you do not want to recompile your source code, you can continue to use the existing ChartDirector library "chartdir.dll" in existing projects, and use the new ChartDirector library "chartdir20.dll" in new projects. These two DLL libraries can co-exists on the same machine without conflicts.

Advanced Software Engineering's licensing policy is that all commercial software licenses will be entitled to free upgrade for the next version of the software, and thereafter, free upgrade for another 12 months.

Therefore, all existing ChartDirector Ver 1.x licenses are still valid for ChartDirector Ver 2.0. The license code is compatible and does not need to change.

To upgrade ChartDirector, simply install the new version on top of the old version.

Like all other software installation process, you should stop your existing version of ChartDirector before installing a new version. If you are using a web server with ChartDirector, you may need to stop your web server.

For Microsoft IIS, you will need to stop it by stopping the "World Wide Web Publishing" services using the Service Control Panel. Stopping IIS using the "Internet Services Manager" is not sufficient, as it does not actually unload the web server.

For the ASP/COM/VB/VBScript/JScript Edition of ChartDirector, the first time you run the setup program, it will prompt you to uninstall the existing version of ChartDirector. After that, you can run the setup program again, and it will install the new version.

For the PHP/Perl/Python Editions of ChartDirector, please ensure that you completely install the new version on top of the old version. In these editions, part of the ChartDirector API is implemented using PHP/Perl/Python in library files called "phpchartdir.php", "perlchartdir.pm" and "pychartdir.py" respectively. You might have copied these files to your scripting directory or directories when you were using the previous version of ChartDirector. Please remember to upgrade these files as well. It is not possible to use the old versions of these library files with the new version of ChartDirector DLL.

Previous versions of ChartDirector for ASP/COM/VB/VBScript/JScript may display Unicode characters with encoding above 0x800 incorrectly. This is now fixed.

Previous versions of ChartDirector do not display a 360 degrees sector in a pie chart correctly (this is possible if the pie chart only has one non-zero sector). This is now fixed.

In previous versions of ChartDirector, if a pie chart is configured to use a custom starting angle (using the setStartAngle method), and the chart is in 3D style, and one of the sector is larger than 180 degrees, then in some cases, the 3D surface may not be drawn correctly. This is now fixed.

ChartDirector allows you to change the numeric formatting of the sector percentage in a pie chart. However, this is broken in ChartDirector Ver 1.5. It is now fixed.

In some cases, auto-scaling may not work correctly for stack bar chart or stack area chart that have only a few (e.g. 1 or 2) data points. This is now fixed.

In previous version of ChartDirector, in order to use the "getDrawArea" method to draw custom shapes on the chart, you need to call "makeChart" first. This should be unnecessary. This is now fixed, so you do not need to call "makeChart" first to draw custom shapes.

In previous version of ChartDirector, if you call the "layout" method to allow dynamic positioning of custom objects on the chart, and a legend box is available on the chart, the legend box will be drawn incorrectly. This is now fixed.