Visualization extensions

A visualization extension is a custom visualization object that you build with standard web technologies. When placed on a sheet, it behaves like any native Qlik chart: it receives data from the Qlik Associative Engine via a hypercube, participates in the app’s selection state, and responds to active themes. The extension renders inside a bounded element allocated by the sheet; everything outside that boundary belongs to Qlik and must not be modified.

Choose your tools

Two frameworks manage the integration between your code and Qlik Cloud - lifecycle, data binding, selections, and themes - and one rendering library works with either of them.

For new work, choose nebula.js as your framework. The Extension API remains supported but is no longer the recommended path. If you are starting a significant update to an existing Extension API extension, consider migrating to nebula.js as part of that work.

picasso.js is not an alternative to these frameworks - it is a charting library you can use inside either one. It provides a component model for assembling charts from axes, marks, and scales similar to libraries like D3, but with simplified APIs tailored for data visualization. Its picasso-plugin-q understands the Qlik hypercube format natively, so you do not need to transform data before rendering. Use it when you need a custom chart type that goes beyond what your framework provides out of the box.