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Interacting with the PGplotter

The menu bar on the PGplotter window created by the above example includes the File, Tools, Edit, and Help items.

Under the File item are the selections:

• Save - allows you to save the plot either as a series of PGPLOT commands (these are stored in an AIPS++ table whose name is written to the logger).

• Open - allows you to recreate a plot previously saved as PGPLOT commands with the Save selection. When Open is selected, a file browser will appear. Simply select the desired plot file from the file browser and click Send and Dismiss.

• Print - activates the standard AIPS++ printer GUI. It first saves the file as a postscript file which you can then spool to a printer or preview with ghostview.

  If you expect to print only a single page reflecting the current display, it is recommended that you press Clear on the PGplotter, issue the plot commands, and then send the plot to the printer. Otherwise, all plot commands stored in the buffer will be printed, possibly resulting in multiple pages of output.

Under the Tools item are the selections:

• Zoom - Selecting zoom will pop up a new window which gives a Reset Full View button. Press this button to unzoom the plot to its original scale. To zoom the plot, drag out a box with the left mouse button. When the plot is zoomed as required, the zoom tool can be dismissed with the button on the zoom popup window.

• Colormap - This selection allows you to modify a color table which has previously been defined by a call to the PGplotter function ctab (a native PGPLOT command). If you have not called ctab in your plot, this selection has no effect.

• Dismiss - dismisses the GUI (but does not destroy it). The GUI can be recovered with the PGplotter.gui function.

• Done - destroys the GUI and the PGplotter tool.

Under the Edit item are the selections:

• Edit - This allows for interactive modification of the displayed plot. Selecting this will create a new GUI for editing the plot commands. The plot created by the above example is drawn with a series of 11 commands which are shown under the Drawlist column. To change the color of the line plot from red to green, for example, find the sci entry closest to the bottom of the drawlist. Select it with the left mouse button and change the ci entry from 2 to 3, then hit return and the plot will be updated. A clipboard is available to simplify any rearrangement or additions to the drawlist commands. To add new commands, the Add to Drawlist and Add to Clipboard options can be used. Simply select the command to be added from the list given and press the appropriate button. The new commands can then be seen at the bottom of the Drawlist or Clipboard list.

Under the Help menubar item are the standard AIPS++ help items, which can be used to point your web browser to appropriate help pages, report defects, and ask questions of the AIPS++ staff.

A one line message area appears just below the menu bar. Instructions for using various PGplotter tools (e.g. zoom) may appear here. Below that is the canvas for the plots.

At the bottom are buttons Save, Print, Clear, Dismiss and Done. The first and last two are short-cuts for the same operations under the menubar item File. The Clear button clears the display and empties the display list. With the Print button, you can type in the name of the file in the widget next to that button.

The PGplotter commands are most easily learned from examples. The following examples show some common plot types. For a comprehensive list of the PGplotter capabilities, see the User Reference Manual and the Glish User Manual.