xvs: The Control Panel


The xvs control panel is a collection of tabbed folders with the following tabs. Click on any of the links for information about the corresponding sub-panel (folder).

NOTES:

  1. Many of the functions described below have keyboard shortcuts---typically uppercase alphabetic characters---that are given in parentheses following the panel/widget/function name. For instance, "The Ops sub-panel (O)" means that SHIFT-O will bring up the Ops sub-panel, "Auto (A)" means that SHIFT-A will initiate auto-mode, etc.

  2. xvs operations and features (modes, applicators, plot styles etc.) generally apply on a per-window basis, so that, for example, distinct windows can be in distinct display modes at any given time. This behaviour can be changed by depressing the All radio-button widget, found on the main GUI, as well as the Ops, View and File sub-panels. Those functions/widgets which will be then applied to all windows are indicated with an asterix (*) below.

  3. In the following, Left, Right, Middle, and Any denote clicks of the left, right, middle, and any mouse buttons respectively.

The Ops sub-panel (O)

Ops: Mode Menu

A particularly important widget on the Ops sub-panel is the Mode pull down menu (as shown above), whose entries control the major modes of xvs operation as follows:

Ops: Other Widgets

The other widgets on the Ops panel have functions as follows:

The View sub-panel (V)

A view of a dataset is defined as the 2-dimensional bounding box (xmin,xmax,ymin,ymax) giving the coordinate ranges of the currently viewed area. Normally, xvs automatically re-scales the view to coincide with the extremal x and y values of all datasets in a window (so called floating domain mode). Many of the widgets in the view sub-panel allow this default behaviour to be modified.

Functionality of the widgets in this panel is as follows:

The File sub-panel (F2)

The file sub-panel is used to load data from .sdf files into the server, as well as to save data from the server to .sdf files.

Note that .sdf file loading can also be accomplished via the sdftoxvs command, and that data from the server can be saved as files using the xvs save ... or xvs saveall commands.

The File panel widgets operate as follows:

The Markers sub-panel (M)

The Markers panel provides widgets to control the manner in which datasets are plotted.

The Marker type menu, shown above, allows the selection of a number of self-explanatory plotting styles.

The other widgets in the panel function as follows: Note that tagging and multi mode are generally incompatible.

The Browse sub-panel

The Browse panel allows the user to browse the numerical values of the data stored in the active window.

The widgets in this sub-panel function as follows:
  1. Name (R*): Window name: the active window may re re-named by typing in this widget.
  2. Index: Current display index. The dataset currently being viewed may be changed by typing in this widget.
  3. Format: This type-in widget defines the printf-style format specification used in the browsing output window. The format may be changed by typing a valid format code for a double in the widget.
  4. Reset: This button resets the display format to the xvsstart-up value.

The Label sub-panel

The label panel controls the display and appearance of the various annotations which appear in xvs data windows. Note that annotation adjustments apply to all windows, i.e. there is no per-window control of the labeling.

The Label widgets function as follows:

The Mpeg sub-panel

The MPEG panel allows the user to easily create an MPEG movie file from the data stored in the active window.

The Berkeley MPEG tools, including executables mpeg_encode and mpeg_play are required for MPEG generation and playback. These tools may be downloaded via THIS PAGE.

The Mpeg widgets operate as follows: The display area at the bottom of the panel displays all files with an .mpeg extension in the working directory. Any file that will be clobbered by a Record operation is highlighted in red.

The SM sub-panel

The SM panel provides the user with an interface to the SuperMongo (sm plotting package, and thus one way of producing publication-quality plots (including hard-copy) of data stored in the server.

The widgets in this sub-panel function as follows: The display area at the bottom of the panel displays all files in the sm working directory.

CAUTION!: Ensure that all of the shells (child processes) which are created via Gen. are closed (by, e.g., exiting the sm and editor sessions), prior to exiting xvs. Otherwise, network resources associated with xvs, including the main communications port, will remain open, and xvs will not subsequently re-start until the child processes have been terminated.