Ridgeline

Stacked distributions. It sits in the Distribution group of the widget library.

When to use it#

Use a ridgeline to compare the shape of amounts across many groups, one smooth curve per row, stacked with a little overlap. It suits questions like "how do transaction sizes differ by month?" or "which categories have lots of small charges?", where a row of box plots would feel cramped.

When to pick something else#

• Only one to three groups? A Density chart overlays them more directly.
• Readers need medians and ranges? Use a Box plot.
• Want to see every value? Use a Strip plot or Beeswarm.

The data it needs#

Pick these in the Data tab of the inspector. BankSync suggests a column for each when your source has an obvious match.

Each row is drawn as it is, so shape the rows first if you need totals. See Shaping data.

Ridgeline options#

This chart has no options of its own; everything on its Style tab is the shared chart styling below.

Shared chart styling#

Every chart also has the shared styling options. These apply to this one:

• Legend: position, layout and which series show.
• Axes: titles, tick labels and number format.
• Grid, title, padding and background.
• Value labels on the marks.
• Categories and labels: top N with "Other", sort order, readable labels, the handwritten callout.
• Style: corner radius, line width, opacity and animation.
• Tooltip on hover.
• Click to filter: clicking a mark can filter the rest of the dashboard. See Filters and cross-filtering.
• Colours: follow the dashboard palette or pick one for this chart.

Messy data#

• Blank or non-numeric values are skipped, not treated as zero. With none left you see "No numbers to show".
• The number of rows depends on the card's height (up to 30); extra groups fold into "Other (n)", keeping those with the most values.
• All ridges share one height scale, so a group with a sharp peak can dwarf flatter groups.
• Very small groups still get a smooth curve that can look more certain than the data allows.
• When rows are tighter than the text, some group labels are skipped.

On a phone#

A phone card is short, so fewer ridges fit and some row labels are skipped. It reads best with a handful of groups; with many, give the widget more height on phones or use a Box plot.

Related charts#

• Scatter plot: Two measures on x/y
• Histogram: Distribution of one measure
• Box plot: Quartiles with whiskers
• Violin: Density per category
• Beeswarm: Non-overlapping dot plot
• Density: Kernel-smoothed distribution
• Strip plot: Each value as a tick
• Jitter plot: Scattered dots per category